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©HE QiAMOND 



H I P 


MAX PEMBERTON 

II 

AUTHOR C^F “ DOqyOR XAVIER,” 
“THE HUNDRED DAYS,” ETC. 



NEW YORK 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
1907 



USf?^RY of CON'GKPSSi 
Two Coni»*« r/ycptvofl 

AIG 20 1906 



Copyright, 1906, by 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 


Published, 


, 1907 




CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I. — ^The Preface of Timothy McShanus, 

Journalist 1 

II. — Harriet Fabos Tells of Her Brother’s 

Return to Deepdene Hall . . . 15 

III. — Harriet Fabos Continues Her Narrative 22 

IV. — Fan Fabos Begins His Story ... 32 

V. — The Man with the Three Fingers . . 40 

VI. — A Challenge from a Woman ... 51 

VH. — My Friend McShanus . . . . 59 

VIII. — We Visit Africa ... . . 69 

IX. — The Night is not Silent . . . 76 

X. — The Vision of the Ship . . . 86 

XI. — Dead Man’s Raft ... . . 100 

XH. — Santa Maria 105 

XIII. — The Cave in the Mountain . . . 120 

XIV. — Val Imroth 132 

XV.— The Alarm 138 

XVI. — At Valley House 150 

XVII. — The Nine Days of Silence .... 160 

XVIII. — Down to the Sea 172 

XIX. — In the Meantime 184 


V 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

XX. — ^The Skies Betray 191 

XXI. — A Pillar of Light 210 

XXII. — The Crimson Rocket .... 220 

XXIII. — We Defy the Rogues . . . . 229 

XXIV.— Dawn 239 

XXV. — ^The Thrasher and the Whale . . 244 

XXVI. — Seven Days Later 255 

XXVII. — Dr. Fabos Boards the Diamond Ship . 268 

XXVIII. — ^The Strong Room of the Ocean . 279 

XXIX. — ^The Bridge and Afterwards . . 289 

XXX. — Homeward Bound 313 

XXXI. — The End of the Diamond Ship . . 326 

XXXII. — In London Once More .... 335 

XXXIII. — ^The Master Card 345 

XXXIV. — ^The Epilogue of Timothy McShanus, 

Journalist 365 


vi 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


CHAPTER I 

THE PREFACE OF TIMOTHY McSHANUS, JOURNALIST 

It would have been at the Fancy Fair and Fete at 
Kensington Town Hall that my friend Dr. Fabos 
first met Miss Fordibras. Very well do I recollect 
that he paid the price of it for the honorable com- 
pany of the Goldsmith Club. 

“ McShanus,” said he, “ if there’s anyone knows 
his way to a good supper, ’tis yourself and no other. 
Lead forth to the masquerade and I follow. Spare 
no expense, McShanus. Your friends are my friends. 
I would have this a memorable night — the last I may 
be in London for many a year.” 

There were seven of us who took him at his word 
and got into the cab together. You must know that 
he had paid for a little dinner at the Goldsmith Club, 
and never a man who did not justice to his handsome 
hospitality. The night was clear and there were 
stars in the heavens. I mind me that a little of the 
dulce and the desipere moved us to sing “ Rule Bri- 
1 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


tannia ” as we went. ’Tis a poor heart that never 
rejoices; and Ean Fabos paid for it — as I took the 
opportunity to remark to my good friend Killock, 
the actor. 

“ Shall we pay for the cab? ” says he. 

“ Would you insult the most generous heart in 
Great Britain this night? ” says I. 

“ On reflection,” says he, ‘‘ the man who does not 
pay will have no trouble about his change ” ; and 
with that we went into the hall. It is true that 
we were a remarkable company. My old comrade, 
Barry Henshaw, had come in a velvet shooting coat 
and a red neckcloth that was not to the taste of the 
officials at the box office. Killock himself, the dar- 
ling of the ladies, God bless him, had diamonds strewn 
upon his vest thick enough to make a pattern of 
chrysanthemums. My own cravat would have been 
no disgrace to the Emperor Napoleon. And there 
we stood, seven members of seven honorable profes- 
sions, like soldiers at the drill, our backs to the wall 
of the dancing room and our eyes upon the refresh- 
ment buffet. 

“ ’Tis time for a whisky and soda,” says Barry 
Henshaw, the famous dramatist who has written 
for the theater, directly his coat was off his 
back. 

“ Shame on ye,” says I, “ you that were lapping 
the poison they call kumel not the half of an 
2 


THE PREFACE OF McSHANUS 


hour ago. Beware of the drink, Barry, the secret 
habit.” 

“ Oh,” says he, “ then you’re coming with me, I 
suppose ? ” 

And then he remarked: 

“ If Fabos was a gentleman he would join the pro- 
cession and pay for it. But that’s the worst of these 
shows. You always lose the man with the money.” 

I passed the observation by as impertinent and 
we went to the buffet. What they called the Fancy 
Fair was in full swing by this time; though devil a 
wig on the green for all their money. Slips of beauty 
dressed as shepherdesses mistook me and my friend 
for their sheep and would have fleeced us prettily; 
but our lofty utterance, coming of a full heart and 
two shillings and ten pence in the purse, restrained 
their ardor and sent them to the rightabout. ’Twas 
a fair, be it told, for the sailor boys at Portsmouth; 
and when you had bought a bunch of daisies for ten 
shillings of a maid with blue eyes and cherry lips, 
you could waltz with the same little vixen at five 
shillings a time. My friend, Barry, I observed, 
turned very pale at this suggestion. 

“ Do you not lift the sprightly toe.? ” asked I. 

“ Man,” he said, ‘‘ it’s worse than a Channel 
passage.” 

“ But Fabos is dancing,” said I, pointing to our 
host in the midst of the rabble. “ See what comes of 
S 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


the plain living, my boy. He’ll dance until the sun 
shines and think nothing of it. And a pretty enough 
five shillings’ worth he has on his arm,” I put in 
as an after-thought. 

’Twas odd how we fell to discussing this same 
Dr. Ean Fabos upon every occasion that came to us. 
Was it because of his money — riches beyond dreams 
to poor devils who must please the public or die dis- 
honored in the market place? I venture, no. We of 
the Goldsmith Club care for no man’s money. Bid 
the Vanderbilts come among us and we lift no hats. 
’Tis truth that in so far as they assist the mighty sons 
of Homer and Praxiteles to meet their just obligations 
upon quarter day, they have some use in the world. 
I have known circumstances when they have kept 
precious lives from the Underground Railway or the 
Round Pond in Kensington Gardens. But this is to 
betray the secrets of my club and of my poor friends, 
Killock and Barry Henshaw and the rest. 

What I was saying ’twas that Ean Fabos’s riches 
made no more mark upon us than a lady’s parasol 
upon the back of a mule. They said he was a doctor 
of Cambridge whose father had made a fortune out 
of Welsh coal and then joined his ancestors. My 
homage to his consideration, say I. May the warmth 
of his discovery glow in many hearts and long blaze 
in beneficent profusion up the chimneys of the Gold- 
smith Club. He has bequeathed us a noble son, whose 
4 


THE PREFACE OF McSHANUS 


dinners are second to none in the empire. Again 
I say, hats off. ’Twas a gentleman entirely. 

But I speak of his son dancing with the little girl 
in red at the Fancy Fair at Kensington. Be sure 
that his six feet one would go bending to sixty-eight 
inches and whispering soft things in her ear at five 
shillings the waltz, as the programme told ye. And 
he such a silent man ordinarily — not to be moved 
from that rogue of a taciturn smile we see so often 
upon his face even when the wit of the club is worthy 
of the name we bear. They call Ean Fabos many 
names. Some say misogynist; others cynic; a few 
speak of his lacking heart; there are those who call 
him selfish. What’s he do with all his money Do 
his friends share it? The sacred shrines of Bacchus 
know better. He buys diamonds, they say. Just 
that, great diamonds and rubies and sapphires, not 
for a woman’s pretty arms or her white shoulders, 
you must know ; but to lock up in his safe at his great 
house down Newmarket way ; to lock up and hide 
from men and gloat upon in the silence of the night. 
That’s what the world says. I’d add to it that there’s 
no true charity in all London which has not bene- 
fited secretly by his generous alms. But that is 
known to few . . . and was never known to me until 
I met the daughter of my friend Oscroft, the painter ; 
left an orphan as she was in this same unkind city. 

What is it then about Ean Fabos that turns all 

5 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


eyes upon him in whatever company he may be? 
Some, for sure, hope to borrow money of him. So 
much my great heart for humanity must admit. 
They hope to borrow money from him and to save 
him from others who would do likewise. ’Tis their 
way of friendship. But, mark ye, there are many 
more, strangers to him, enemies because of the favor 
he enjoys, and these are on their knees with the rest. 
What is it, then? I’ll tell you in a word. ’Tis that 
great power of what they call personal magnetism; 
a power that we can give no right name to, but must 
admit wherever we find it. Ean Fabos had it be- 
yond any man I have known. Let him say three 
words at a table and the whole room is listening. 
Let him hold his tongue and the people are looking 
at him. You cannot pass it by. It grips you with 
both hands, draws you forward, compels you to give 
your best. And that’s why men gather about my 
friend Dr. Ean as they would about the fine gentle- 
men of old Greece could they come back to this Lon- 
don of ours. They have no will of their own while 
he is among them. 

Now, this is the very man whom I saw dancing 
twice (at five shillings a time, though naturally the 
money would be nothing to him, while much to poor 
souls who have had their pictures flung into the mud 
by the sorry Sassenachs who sit at Burlington 
House), dancing twice, I say with a black-haired 
6 


THE PREFACE OF McSHANUS 


shepherdess in a red cloak; not one that I myself, 
who have a fine eye for the sex, would have been lav- 
ishing my immortal wit upon, but just a merry bit 
of laughing goods that you can sample in any ball- 
room. When he surrendered her to her father, a 
stately old gentleman, stiff as a poker in the back, 
and one who reminded me of my dead f riend, General 
von Moltke of Prussia; when he did this, I say, and 
I asked him who she might be, he answered me with 
the frankness of a boy. 

“ Timothy McShanus,” says he, ‘‘ she’s the daugh- 
ter of General Fordibras, whose ancestor went to 
America with the Marquis de Lafayette. That is 
the beginning and end of my knowledge. Lead me 
forth to the cellar for I would quench my thirst. Not 
since I was the stroke of the great Leander boat at 
Henly, did there drop from my brow such honest 
beads of sweat. Man alive ! I would not go through 
it again for the crown ruby of Jetsapore.” 

“ Your friend Lafayette was known to my grand- 
father,” says I, leading him straight to the buffet, 
“ though I do not remember to have met him. As 
for the labor that ye speak of, I would ask you why 
you do it if ye have no stomach for it? To dance 
or not to dance — shall that be the question.? Not 
for such men as we. Dr. Fabos; not for those who 
dwell upon the Olympian heights and would fly higher 

if ye could oblige them with the loan ” 

7 


« 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


He cut me very short, mistaking my words. Not 
a man who is given to what is called dramatic gesture, 
I was much astonished when he took me by the arm 
and, leading me away to a corner, made the stran- 
gest confession that ever fell from such a man’s 
lips. 

“ I danced with her, McShanus,” said he, “ because 
she is wearing the bronze pearls that were stolen from 
my flat in Paris just three years ago.” 

Be sure that I looked hard enough at him. 

‘‘ Is there but one bronze pearl in the world ? ” I 
asked him after a while of surprise. 

He turned upon me that weary smile which intellect 
may turn upon curiosity sometimes, and rejoined as 
one who pitied me : 

‘‘ There are just ten of that particular shape, Mc- 
Shanus,” says he, “ and she is wearing four of them 
in the pendant she has upon her neck. The heart of 
it is a rose diamond which once belonged to Princess 
Marguerite of Austria. There is a sweet little white 
sapphire in the ring she wears, that I fancy I remem- 
ber somewhere, though the truth of it has gone out 
of my head. If she will give me another dance by 
and by, I will tell you more perhaps. But do not 
speculate upon my actions any further. You have 
known me long enough to say that waltzing is not 
an employment which usually occupies my attention.” 

“ ’Tis true as all the gospels,” cried I, “ and yet, 

8 


THE PREFACE OF McSHANUS 


what a story to hear! Would you have me think 
that yon bit of a girl is a thief? ” 

“ Oh,” says he, his clear blue eyes full upon me, 
“does an Irishman ever give himself time to think? 
Come, McShanus, use your wits. If she or her father 
knew that the jewels were stolen, would she be wear- 
ing them in a ballroom in London ? ” 

“ Why, no, she certainly would not.” 

“ W rong every time, Timothy McShanus. She 
would wear them for mere bravado. That’s what 
I’ve been telling myself while I danced with her. If 
she does not know the truth, her father does.” 

“ What, the military looking gentleman who 
so closely resembles my friend. General von Molt- 
ke?” 

“No other at all. I have me doubts about 
him. He knows that his daughter is wearing stolen 
jewels, but he has not the smallest idea that I know. 
Either that, or he is clever enough to play Hamlet 
in a tam-o-shanter. Excuse my unwonted agi- 
tation, McShanus. This is really very interest- 
ing.” 

I could see that he found it so. In all the years I 
have known him, never have I seen Ean Fabos so 
much put about or so little anxious to escape from 
his own thoughts. Fine figure of a man that he was, 
with great square shoulders hammered out in the 
rowing boats, a very Saxon all over him, with a curly 
0 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


brown wig and a clean-shaven chin and boy’s eyes 
and a man’s heart — that was the body corporate of 
Ean Fabos. His mind not a man among us had ever 
read. I would have named him yesterday the most 
careless banker of his riches and money in the three 
kingdoms of Ireland, Wales, and England. And 
here I found him set thinking like a philosopher, be- 
cause he had stumbled across a few paltry pearls 
stolen from his cabinet. Should I alter my opinion 
of him for that.^* Devil a bit. ’Twas the girl of 
whom he thought, I could see. 

So here was Timothy McShanus deserting the 
baked meats, to say nothing of his convenient corner 
in the buffet, to go out and stare at a red shepherdess 
with picture books and maizypop to sell. And what 
kind of a colleen was it that he saw.? Why, nothing 
out of the ordinary when viewed from afar — ^but come 
a little closer and you shall see the blackest and the 
wickedest pair of eyes that ever looked out from the 
face of Venus. ’Tis no common man I am in my 
judgment of the sex; but this I will say that when 
the girl looked at me, she found me as red in the 
face as a soldier at a court-martial. Not tall above 
the common ; her hair a deep chestnut running almost 
to black; her mouth just a rosebud between two 
pretty cheeks — there was something of France and 
something of America helping each other to make 
a wonder of her. Young as she was, and I supposed 
10 


THE PREFACE OF McSHANUS 


her to be about eighteen, her figure would have given 
her five years more according to our Northern ideas ; 
but I, who know Europe as I know Pall Mall, said: 
“ No, she is eighteen, McShanus, my boy, and Amer- 
ica has kept that peach blossom upon her cheeks.” 
Had I been mistaken, her voice would have corrected 
me. ’Twas a young girl’s voice when she spoke, clear 
and musical as the song of silver bells. 

“ Now, won’t you buy a novel ” she said, bustling 
up to me just like a bunch of roses. “ Here’s Sir 
Arthur Hall Rider’s very latest — an autograph copy 
for one guinea.” 

“ Me dear,” says I, “ ’tis Timothy McShanus who 
reads his own novels. Speak not of his poor rivals.” 

‘‘ Why, how clever of you,” says she, looking at 
me curiously ; “ and, of course, your books are the 
best. Why didn’t you send me some to sell on my 
stall.? ” 

“ Bedad and they’re out of print, every wan av 
them,” says I, speaking the Sassenach’s tongue to 
her as it should be spoken ; “ here’s the Archbishop 
and the Lord Chancellor together lamentin’ it. ‘ Tim- 
othy,’ says his lordship, ‘ the great masters are dead, 
Timothy. Be up and doing or we are lost entirely.’ 
The riches of America could not buy one of my novels 
— unless it were that ye found wan av them upon an 
old bookstall at fourpence.” 

She didn’t know what to make of me. 

3 11 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


‘‘ How strange that I don’t know your name,” says 
she perplexed ; “ did they review your novels in the 
newspapers ? ” 

“ My dear,” says I, the newspaper reviewers 
couldn’t understand ’em. Be kind to them for it. 
Ye can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear any 
more than ye can make black pearls out of lollypops. 
Could it be, Timothy McShanus would be driving his 
own motor car and not re juiced to the back seat of 
the omnibus. ’Tis a strange world with more wrong 
than right in it.” 

“ You like my pearls, then.^* ” she asked. 

I said they were almost worthy of her wearing 
them. 

“ Papa bought them in Paris,” she ran on as 
natural as could be. “ They’re not black, you know, 
but bronze. I don’t care a bit about them myself. 
I like things that sparkle.” 

“ Like your eyes,” cried I, searching for the truth 
in them. For sure, I could have laughed aloud just 
now at my friend Fabos’s tale of her ; “ like your eyes 
when you were dancing a while back with a doctor of 
my acquaintance.” 

She flushed a hair’s breadth and turned her head 
away. 

“ Oh, Dr. Fabos, do you know him, then.? ” 

“We have been as brothers for a matter of ten 
short years.” 


12 


THE PREFACE OF McSHANUS 


“ Is he killing people in London, did you say? ” 

“No such honorable employment. He’s just a 
fine, honest, independent gentleman. Ye’ve nothing 
much richer in America, maybe. The man who says 
a word against him has got to answer Timothy Mc- 
Shanus. Let him make his peace with Heaven before 
he does so.” 

She turned an arch gaze upon me, half -laughing 
at my words. 

“ I believe he sent you here to say so,” cried she. 

“ Indeed an’ he did,” says I ; “ he’s anxious for 
your good opinion.” 

“ Why, what should I know of him ? ” says she, and 
then, turning to stare after him, she cried : “ There 
he is, talking to my father. I guess he knows we’re 
picking him to pieces.” 

“ Pearls every one,” says I. 

“ Oh, dad is calling me,” she exclaimed, breaking 
away upon the words and showing me as pretty an 
ankle, when she turned, as I am likely to behold out 
of Dublin. A minute afterwards, what should I see 
but the general and her walking off with my friend 
Fabos just as if they had known him all their lives. 

“ And may the great god Bacchus, to say nothing 
of the little divinities who preside over the baked 
meats, may they forgive him,” I cried to Barry Hen- 
shaw and the rest of the seven. “ He has gone with- 
out leaving us the money for our supper, and ’tis 
13 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


two and tenpence halfpenny that stands for all the 
capital I have in this mortal world.” 

We shook our hands in true sorrow and buttoned 
our coats about us. In thirst we came, in thirst must 
we return. 

“ And for a bit of a colleen that I could put in 
my pocket,” says I, as we tramped from the hall. 

But what the others said I will make no mention 
of, being a respecter of persons and of the King’s 
English, God bless him. 


14 


CHAPTER II 


HARRIET FAROS TELES OF HER BROTHER’S RETURN 
TO DEEPDENE HALL 

I HAVE been asked to write very shortly that which 
I know of General Fordibras and of my brother’s 
mysterious departures from England in the summer 
of the year 1904. God grant that all is well with 
him and that these lines will be read by no others 
than the good friends who have not forgotten me in 
my affliction. 

It was, I think, in the December of the previous 
year that he first met the general in London, as I 
understood from him, at a fashionable bazaar at 
Kensington. This circumstance he related to me 
upon his return ; and a sister’s interest in Joan Fordi- 
bras could not be but a growing one. I recollect that 
the general drove over one day in the spring from 
Newmarket and took luncheon with us. He is a fine 
stately man with a marked American accent and a 
manner which clearly indicates his French birth. 
The daughter, I thought, a pretty, winsome child; 
very full of quaint sayings and ideas and so unlike 
15 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


our English girls. Ean had spoken of her so often, 
that I was not prepared for the somewhat distant 
manner in which he treated her. Perhaps, in my 
heart, I found myself a little relieved. It has always 
been a sorrow to me to think that one I had loved 
so well as brother Ean might some day find my affec- 
tion for him insufficient. 

General Fordibras, it appears, made a hobby of 
yachting. He lives but little in America, I under- 
stand, but much in Paris and the South. Ean used 
to be very fond of the sun, but he had given it up 
so many years that I was surprised to hear how much 
a sailor he can be. His own pet things — the labora- 
tory, the observatory on our grounds, his rare books, 
above all, his rare jewels — ^were but spoken of in- 
differently. General Fordibras is very little inter- 
ested in them; while his daughter is sufficiently an 
American to care chiefly for our antiquities — of which 
I was able to show her many at Deepdene. When 
they left us it was to return to London, I understood ; 
and then to join the general’s yacht at Cherbourg. 

Ean spoke little to me of these people when they 
were gone. I felt quite happy that he made no men- 
tion of the daughter, Joan. Very foreign to his 
usual habits, however, he was constantly to and fro 
between our house and London; and I observed, not 
without some uneasiness, that he had become a little 
nervous. This was the more remarkable because he 
16 


HARRIET FAROS’ NARRATIVE 


has always been singularly fearless and brave, and 
ready to risk his own life for others upon the hum- 
blest call. At first I thought that he must be out 
of health and would have had Dr. Wilcox over to see 
him; but he always resents my attempts to coddle 
him (as he calls it), and so I forebore, and tried to find 
another reason. 

There is no one quicker than a sister who loves, to 
detect those ailments of the heart from which no man 
is free ; but I had become convinced by this time that 
Ean cared nothing for Joan Fordibras, and that her 
absence abroad was not the cause of his disquietude. 
Of other reasons I could name none that might be 
credibly received. Certainly money troubles were out 
of the question, for I know that Ean is very rich. 
We had at Deepdene none of those petty parochial 
jealousies which are the cause of conflict in certain 
quarters. Our lives were quiet, earnest, and simple. 
What, then, had come to my brother.? Happy indeed 
had I been if I could have answered that question. 

The first thing that I noticed was his hesitation to 
leave me alone at the manor. For the first time for 
some years he declined to attend the annual dinner 
of his favorite club, the Potters. 

“ I should not be able to catch the last train down,” 
he said one morning at breakfast. “ Impossible, 
Harriet. I must not go.” 

“ Why, whatever has come to you, Ean.? ” said I. 

17 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


“ Are you getting anxious about poor old me? My 
dear boy, just think how often I have been alone 
here.” 

“ Yes, but in future I don’t intend to leave you so 
much. When the reasons make themselves known to 
me, they shall be known to you, Harriet. Meanwhile, 
I am going to live at home. The little Jap stops 
with me. He is coming down from town to-day, so 
I hope you will make arrangements for him.” 

He spoke of his Japanese servant Okyada, whom 
he brought from Tokyo with him three years ago. 
The little fellow had served him most faithfully at 
his chambers in the Albany, and I was not displeased 
to have him down in Suffolk. Ean’s words, however, 
troubled me greatly, for I imagined that some dan- 
ger threatened him in London, and a sister’s heart 
was beating already to discover it. 

“ Cannot you tell me something, Ean ? ” 

He laughed boyishly in a way that should have 
reassured me. 

“ I will tell you something, Harriet. Do you re- 
member the bronze pearls that were stolen from my 
flat in Paris more than three years ago? ” 

“ Of course, Ean — I remember them perfectly. 
How should I forget them? You don’t mean to 


“ That I have recovered them? No, not quite. But 
I know where they are.” 


18 


HARRIET FAROS’ NARRATIVE 


“ Then you will recover them, Ean ? ” 

“ Ah, that is for to-morrow. Let Okyada, by the 
way, have the room next to my dressing room. He 
won’t interfere with my clothes, Harriet. You will 
still be able to coddle me as much as you please . . . 
and, of course, I will always warm the scissors before 
I cut my nails in winter.” 

He was laughing at me again, a little unjustly 
perhaps, as I have always believed that influenzas and 
rheums come to those who allow anything cold to 
touch the skin . . . but this is my old-womanish 
fancy; while Ean is not altogether free himself from 
those amiable weaknesses and fads which take some 
part in all our lives. He, for instance, must have all 
his neckties of one color in a certain drawer ; some of 
his many clothes must go to the press upon one day 
and others upon the next. He buys great quantities 
of things from his hosier and does not wear a half 
of them. I am always scolding him for walking about 
the grounds at night in his dress clothes ; but he never 
does so without first warming his cloth cap at the 
fire, if it be winter. I make mention of these trifles 
that others may understand how little there is of real 
weakness in a very lovable, manly, and courageous 
character. Beyond that, as the world knows well, 
Ean is one of the greatest linguists and accomplished 
scholars in all Europe. 

Now had I been clever, I should have put two and 

19 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


two together and have foreseen that what Ean really 
feared was another attempt upon the wonderful col- 
lection of rare jewels he has made — a collection the 
existence of which is known to very few people, but 
is accounted among the most beautiful and rarest in 
the country. Ean keeps his jewels — at least he kept 
them until recently — in a concealed safe in his own 
dressing room, and very seldom was even I permitted 
to peep into that holy of holies. Here again some 
eccentricity of a lovable character is to be traced. 
My brother would as soon have thought of wear- 
ing a diamond in his shirt front as of painting his 
face like an Indian; but these hidden jewels he loved 
with a rare ardor, and I do truly believe that they 
had some share in his own scheme of life. When he 
lost the bronze pearls in Paris, I know that he fretted 
like a child for a broken toy. It was not their value, 
not at all — he called them his black angels, in jest of 
course, and I think that he believed some of his own 
good luck went with them. 

This was the state of things in the month of May 
when Okyada, the Japanese, came from London and 
took up his residence at the manor. Ean told me 
nothing; he never referred again to the subject of 
his lost pearls. Much of his time was spent in his 
study, where he occupied himself with the book he was 
writing upon the legends of the Adriatic. His leisure 
he gave to his motor and his observatory. I began 
20 


HARRIET FABOS’ NARRATIVE 


to believe that whatever anxiety troubled him had 
passed; and in this belief I should have continued 
but for the alarming events of which I now write. 
And this brings me to the middle of the summer; to 
be exact, the 15th day of June in the year 1904. 




CHAPTER III 


HARRIET FAROS CONTINUES HER NARRATIVE 

Ean, I remember, had come in from a little trip 
to Cambridge about five o’clock in the afternoon. 
We had tea together, and afterwards he called his 
servant, Okyada, to the study and they were closeted 
there almost until dinner time. In the drawing-room 
later on Ean proved to be in the brightest of spirits. 
He spoke, among other things, of some of his de- 
serted hobbies and expressed regret that he had given 
up his yacht. 

“ I’m getting old before my time, Harriet,” he 
said ; “ the pantaloon and slippered stage is a tragedy 
for thirty-three. I think I shall get another boat, 
sister. If you are good, I will take you to the Adri- 
atic again.” 

I promised to be very good; and then laughing 
together, we chatted of the old days in Greece and 
Turkey, of our voyages to South America, and of 
sunny days in Spain. I had never seen him brighter. 
When we went to bed he kissed me twice and then said 
such an extraordinary thing that I could not help 
but remember it. 


22 


CONTINUES HER NARRATIVE 


“ Okyada and I will be working late in the observa- 
tory,” he said ; “ there may be one or two men about 
assisting us. Don’t be afraid if you hear a noise, 
Harriet. You will know it’s all right and that I am 
aware of it.” 

Now, Ean is so very frank with me usually, looks 
me so straight in the face, and tells me so plainly 
what he means, that his evident attempt to conceal 
something from me upon this occasion, his averted 
gaze and forced manner could not but awake my just 
curiosity. I did not press him at the moment, but 
in my own room I thought much upon it all and was 
quite unable to sleep. Books were of no help to me ; 
nor did my habitual self-composure help me. Recall- 
ing his words and trying to fit a meaning to them, I 
went more than once to my window and looked out 
over the pleasure garden beneath it. Deepdene, as 
many know, is an old Tudor mansion with three sides 
of its ancient quadrangle still standing. My own 
rooms are in the right-hand wing ; the pleasure garden 
is below them, and beyond its high wall is the open 
park which runs right down to the Bury road. Let me 
ask anyone what my feelings must have been when, 
chancing to look out over the garden at one o’clock 
that morning, I saw, as plainly as my eyes have ever 
seen, the figures of three men crouching beneath the 
wall and evidently as fearful of discovery as I was 
of their presence. 

23 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


My first impulse, naturally, was to wake Ean and 
to let him know what I had seen. No very courageous 
person at the best, I have always been greatly afraid 
of the presence of strange men about the house, and 
this visitation at such an hour would surely have 
alarmed the bravest. As if to magnify my fears, 
there was the light of our observatory shining 
brightly across the park to tell me plainly that my 
brother was still at work and that the invaluable 
Okyada must be with him. My maid, Humphreys, 
and the poor old butler, Wilhams, were my only j anis- 
saries — and what could one hope for from them in 
such an emergency.^ I began to say that if the men 
succeeded in entering the house, the peril were grave 
indeed ; and then, upon this, I recollected Ean’s warn- 
ing and tried to take comfort of it. Had he not said 
that there might be men about the house assisting 
him.^ Why, then, should I be afraid.^ I will tell 
you: because it came to me suddenly that he must 
have been aware of a probable attack upon the manor, 
and had wished to prepare me for anything the night 
could bring forth. There was no other reasonable 
explanation. 

Judge, then, in what a dilemma I found myself. 
My brother away at the observatory, half a mile at 
least from the manor; two old servants for my body- 
guard ; a lonely house and strange men seeking to en- 
ter it. Driven this way and that by my thoughts, at 


CONTINUES HER NARRATIVE 


first I said that I would take Ean at his word and hide 
away from it all like a true coward in my bed. This I 
would have done if the doing of it had not been un- 
supportable. I could not lie. My heart was beat- 
ing so, every sound so distressed me that I arose in 
desperation and, putting on my dressing gown with 
trembling fingers, determined to wake up my maid, 
Humphreys; for, said I, she cannot be more afraid 
than I am. Not an overbold resolution at the best, 
the execution of it would never have been attempted 
had I known what was in store for me. Shall I ever 
forget it, if I live a hundred years.? The dark land- 
ing when I opened my bedroom door ! The staircase 
with the great stained window and the moonlight shin- 
ing down through it! These could not affright me. 
It was the whisper of voices I heard below; the soft 
tread of feet upon velvet pile. Ah, those were sounds 
I shall ever remember ! 

The men had entered the house, they were coming 
upstairs. If I crossed the dark landing to my maid’s 
room, assuredly I should meet them. These were 
the reflections as I stood simply paralyzed with fright 
and unable to utter a single cry or to move from the 
place. Step by step I heard the thieves creeping up 
the stairs until at last I could see them in the bay 
of the entresol and tell myself, in truth, that I was 
not dreaming. Then I do believe that I half swooned 
with terror. 


25 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


They were coming up, step by step, to visit and to 
rob my brother’s safe, kept in the dressing room, where 
the Japanese, Okyada, usually slept. This much 
even my agitated mind impressed upon me: a terri- 
fied woman fearing discovery as something which 
might bring these men’s vengeance upon her, yet for 
all the gold in the world I could not have uttered a 
single cry. A sense of utter dread robbed me of all 
power of will and speech. I could hear my heart 
beating so that I thought even they must hear it 
as they passed me by. And you may imagine my 
feelings when I say that the rays from the dark 
lanterns they carried were turned upon the very door 
of my bedroom, which I had but just shut behind me. 

Had they been diverted a hand’s breadth to the 
right, they would have discovered me, standing with 
my back to the wall, a helpless and, I do protest, a 
pitiable figure. But the robbers were too set upon 
the jewels to delay for any such unlikely chance, 
and they went straight on to my brother’s room, 
and entering it, to my surprise, without difficulty, 
I heard them shut the door and lock it behind 
them. 

So there I stood, my limbs still trembling, but the 
spell of immediate fear already a little removed from 
me. Dreading discovery no longer, I crossed the 
landing silently and entered my maid’s room. A 
courageous woman, far braver than her mistress — 
26 


CONTINUES HER NARRATIVE 


for she is of Irish descent and does not know what 
the meaning of fear is — she heard me with as little 
concern as if I had been ordering her to go shopping 
into Cambridge. 

‘‘ The master’s away in the park,” she said. 
“ Then we must fetch him, mistress. I’ll go myself. 
Do you wait here with me until I am dressed.” 

I dreaded being left, and made no scruple to tell 
her so. 

“ Why, that’s all right,” she exclaimed quite 
cheerily. “ I’ll go and call Williams. They’ll be off 
fast enough, mistress, if they get the diamonds. 
Now, do you just sit here quietly and think nothing 
at all about it. I’ll be there and back like master’s 
motor car. Sure, the impudence of them, to come to 
this house of all places in the world. They’ll be rob- 
bing Buckingham Palace next ! ” 

She was dressing the while she spoke, and being 
ready almost immediately, she put a shawl about her 
shoulders and made to set off through the park. 
When she had gone, I locked the door (coward that I 
was) and sat all alone in the darkness praying for 
my brother’s coming. Indeed, I think that I counted 
the minutes and had come to the belief that Hum- 
phreys had been gone a quarter of an hour (though 
I make sure now that it was not truly more than five 
minutes) when a terrible cry, something so inhuman, 
so dreadful as to be beyond all my experience, rang 
3 27 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


out through the house and was repeated again and 
again until the very night seemed to echo it. 

What had happened.?* Had my brother returned 
then.?* Was it his voice I had heard.?* Not for a 
hundred thousand pounds would I have remained any 
longer in that dark room with these dreadful ques- 
tions for my company. Unlocking the door, I ran 
out to the landing calling, “ Ean ! Ean ! for God’s 
sake, tell me what has happened ! ” 

He answered me at once, my dear brother, stand- 
ing at the door of his dressing room, just, it seemed 
to me, as unconcerned as though he had been called 
up at daybreak to go out with his dogs and gun. 
Quick as he was, however, I had peeped into the 
room behind him, and then I saw something which 
even his cleverness could not hide from me. A man 
lay full length upon the floor, apparently dead. By 
his side there knelt the Japanese Okyada, who chafed 
the limbs of the sufferer and tried to restore him 
to consciousness. This sight, I say, Ean could 
not conceal from me. But he shut the door at 
once and, leading me away, he tried to tell me what 
it was : 

‘‘ My dear Harriet, you see what comes of touch- 
ing scientific implements. Here’s a man who wanted 
to look inside my safe. He quite forgot that the 
door of it is connected up to a very powerful electric 
current. Don’t be alarmed, but go back to your bed. 

28 


CONTINUES HER NARRATIVE 


Did I not tell you that there would be strange men 
about? ” 

“ Ean,” I said, “ for pity’s sake, let me know the 
truth. There were three men altogether. I saw 
them in the garden; they passed me on the stairs. 
They were robbers, Ean ; you cannot hide it from me.” 

“ You poor little Harriet,” he said, kissing me, 
“ of course they were robbers. I have been expect- 
ing them for a week or more. Did I tell you I should 
be in the observatory? That was foolish of me ” 

“ But there was a light there, dear ” 

“ Ah, yes, I wished my guests to think me star- 
gazing. Two of them are now returning to London 
as fast as their motor car can carry them. The other 
will remain with us to recuperate. Go back to bed, 
Harriet, and tell yourself that all is as well as it 
could be.” 

“Ean,” I said, “you are hiding something from 
me.” 

“ My dear sister,” he replied, “ does a man in the 
dark hide anything from anybody? When I know, 
you shall be the first to hear. Believe me, this is no 
common burglary or I would have acted very differ- 
ently. There are deep secrets. I may have to leave 
you to search for them.” 

His words astonished me very much. My own agi- 
tation could not measure his recollection nor the un- 
concern which the strange episodes of the night had 

29 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


left to him. For my part, I could but pass long 
hours of meditation, in which I tried to gather up 
the tangled skein of this surpassing mystery. When 
morning came, my brother had left the house and 
Okyada with him. I have never seen him since that 
day and his letters have told me little. He is upon 
a ship, well and happy, he says, and that ship is his 
own. His voyages have taken him to many ports, 
but he is not yet able to say when he will return. 

“ Be assured, dear sister,” he writes, “ that the 
work to which I have set my hand would be approved 
by you, and that by God’s help I shall accomplish it. 
More I am unable to commit to writing for prudent 
reasons. You wiU keep the guards at the manor 
until I am home and my valuables will remain at the 
bank. Fear nothing, then, for yourself. The fel- 
lows who honored us with their company, two of them 
I should say, are now in South Africa. The third, 
who was a gentleman and may again become a man, 
is now on board this yacht. If he continues to be- 
have himself, a farm in Canada and a little capital 
will be his reward. It is not the instruments, but 
their makers whom I seek; and when they are found, 
then, dear Harriet, will we enjoy halcyon days to- 
gether.” 

To these words he added others, speaking of more 
private matters and those which were of concern but 
to him and to me. By the “ guards ” he meant an 
30 


CONTINUES HER NARRATIVE 


ex-sergeant major and two old soldiers, whom he had 
engaged upon his departure to watch the house in 
his absence. For myself, however, I was no longer 
afraid. Perhaps my unrest had been less if Ean had 
been altogether frank with me ; but his vague intima- 
tion, the knowledge that he was far from me, and the 
inseparable instinct of his danger contributed alike 
to my foreboding. 

That these were not without reason, subsequent 
events have fully justified. His last letter to me was 
dated September 11th — this is the month of Decem- 
ber and I have heard nothing more. That other 
friends, unknown to me personally, but stanch to my 
dear brother, put the worst construction upon his 
silence, the recent paragraphs in the London news- 
papers make very clear. What can a helpless woman 
do that these true friends are not doing.? She can 
but pray to the Almighty for the safety of one very 
dear to her, nay, all that she has to live and hope for 
in this world of sorrow and affliction. 


31 


CHAPTER IV 


EAN FABOS BEGINS HIS STOEY 

Juke 15th, 1904. 

So might my task begin. 

I am to prove that there is a conspiracy of crime 
so well organized, so widespread, so amazing in its 
daring that the police of all the civilized countries 
are at present unable either to imagine or to defeat 
it — I am to do this or pay the supreme penalty of 
failure, ignominious and self-coveted. 

I cannot tell you when first it was that some suspi- 
cion of the existence of this great republic of thieves 
and assassins first came to me. Years ago I asked 
myself if it were not possible. There has been no 
great jewel robbery for a decade past which has not 
found me more zealous than the police themselves in 
study of its methods and judgment of its men. I 
can tell you the weight and size almost of every great 
jewel stolen, either in Europe or America, during the 
past five years. I know the life history of the men 
who are paying the penalty for some of those crimes. 
I can tell you whence they came and what was their 
32 


FABOS BEGINS HIS STORY 


intention should they have carried their booty away. 
I know the houses in London and Paris and Vienna 
and Berlin where you may change a stolen diamond 
for money as readily as men cash a banknote across 
a counter. But there my knowledge has begun and 
ended. I feel like a child before a book whose print 
it cannot read. There is a great world of crime un- 
explored, and its very cities are unnamed. How, 
then, should a man begin his studies.? I answer that 
he cannot begin them unless his destiny opens the 
book. 

Let me set down my beliefs a little plainer. If 
ever the story be read, it will not be by those who 
have my grammar of crime at their call, or have 
studied as I have studied the gospel of robbery as 
long years expound it. It would be idle to main- 
tain at great length my belief that the leading jewel 
robberies of the world are directed by one brain and 
organized by one supreme intelligence. If my own 
pursuit of this intelligence fail, the world will never 
read this narrative. If it succeed, the facts must be 
their own witnesses, speaking more eloquently than 
any thesis. Let me be content in this place to relate 
but a single circumstance. It is that of the discovery 
of a dead body just three years ago on the lonely sea- 
shore by the httle fishing village of Palling in Nor- 
folk. 

Now witness this occurrence. The Coast Guard — 

SS 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


for rarely does any but a coastguardsman tramp that 
lonely shore — a coast guard, patrolling his sandy 
beat at six o’clock of a spring morning, comes sud- 
denly upon the body of a ship’s officer, lying stark 
upon the golden beach, cast there by the flood tide 
and left stranded by the ebb. No name upon the 
buttons of the pilot coat betrayed the vessel which 
this young man had served. His cap, needless to 
say, they did not find. He wore jackboots such as 
an officer of a merchantman would wear; his clothes 
were of navy serge; there was a briar pipe in his 
left-hand pocket ; a silver tobacco box in his right ; 
he carried a gold watch, and it had stopped at five 
minutes past five o’clock. The time, however, could 
not refer to the morning of this discovery. It was 
the coastguardsman’s opinion that the body had been 
at least three days in the water. 

Such a fatality naturally deserved no more than 
a brief paragraph in any daily paper. I should have 
heard nothing of it but for my friend Murray of 
Scotland Yard, who telegraphed for me upon the 
afternoon of the following day ; and, upon my arrival 
at his office, astonished me very much by first showing 
me an account of the circumstance in the Eastern 
Daily Press and then passing for my examina- 
tion a roll of cotton wool such as diamond brokers 
carry. 

“ I want your opinion,” he said without preface. 

34 < 


FABOS BEGINS HIS STORY 


“ Do 3^ou know anything of the jewels in that par- 
cel? ” 

There were four stones lying a glitter upon the 
wool. One of them, a great gem of some hundred 
and twenty carats, rose-colored and altogether mag- 
nificent, I recognized at a single glance. 

“ That,” I said, “ is the Red Diamond of Ford 
VaUey. Ask Baron Louis de Rothschild and he will 
tell you whose property it was.” 

“ Would you be very surprised to hear that it was 
found upon the body of the young sailor? ” 

“ Murray,” I said, “ you have known me too long 
to expect me to be surprised by anything.” 

“ But it is somewhat out of the way, isn’t it? 
That’s why^ I sent for you. The other stones don’t 
appear to be of the same class. But they’re valuable 
I should think.” 

I turned them over in my hand and examined them 
with little interest. 

“ This pure white is a Brazilian,” said I ; “it may 
be worth a hundred and fifty pounds. The other 
two are jewelers’ common stuff. They would make 
a pretty pair of earrings for your daughter, Murray. 
You should make the Treasury an offer for them. 
Say, fifty for the pair.” 

“ The police haven’t much money to waste on the 
ladies’ ears,” he said rather hardly. “We prefer ’em 
without ornament — they go closer to the doors. I 
35 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


thought you would like to hear about this. We can’t 
make much of it here, and I don’t suppose you’ll make 
more. A ship’s officer like that — you don’t expect 
him to be a fence in a common way, and he’s about 
the last you’d name for a professional hand in Paris 
— for if this is Baron Louis’s stone, as you say, it 
must have been stolen in Paris.” 

“No reason at all, Murray. His wife wore it 
in her tiara. She was at the prince’s, I believe, no 
more than a month ago. Does that occur to 
you.^ ” 

He shrugged his shoulders as though I had been 
judging his capacity; which, God knows, would have 
been an unprofitable employment enough. 

“ We haven’t begun to think about it,” he said ; 
“how can we.'* No ship has reported his loss. He 
carried a pipe, a tobacco box, a gold watch and this. 
Where’s your clew start.'* Tell me that and I’ll go 
on it.” 

“ There are no papers, then ? ” 

“ None — that is, this paper. And if you can make 
head or tail of it. I’ll give a hundred pounds to a 
hospital.” 

He passed across the table a worn and tattered let- 
ter case. It contained a dirty calendar of the year, 
a lock of dark chestnut hair, a plain gold wedding 
ring, and a slip of paper with these words upon it: 
‘‘ Captain Three Fingers — Tuesday.” 

36 


FABOS BEGINS HIS STORY 

“ Is that all, Murray? ” I asked when I had put 
the paper down. 

Absolutely all,” he replied. 

‘‘ You have searched him for secret pockets? ” 

“ As a woman’s bag at a remnant sale.” 

“ Where did he carry the diamonds ? ” 

“ Inside his waistcoat — a double pocket lined with 
' wool.” 

“ No arms upon him? ” 

“ Not a toothpick.” 

‘‘ And you have no trace of any vessel ? ” 

“ Lloyds can tell us nothing. There has been no 
report made. It is evident that the man fell off a 
ship, though what ship and where. Heaven alone 
knows.” 

This I am afraid was obvious. The police had 
asked me to identify the jewels, and now that it was 
done, I could be of no more service to them. It 
remained to see what Baron Louis de Rothschild would 
have to say; and when I had reminded Murray of 
that, I took my leave. It would be idle to pretend 
that I had come to any opinion which might help him. 
To me, as to others, the case seemed one of profound 
mystery. A dead seaman carried jewels of great 
price hidden in his clothes, and he had fallen over- 
board from a ship. If some first tremor of an idea 
came to me, I found it in the word “ ship.” A sea- 
man and a ship ! Yes, I must remember that ! 

37 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


And this will bring me to the last and most aston- 
ishing feature of this perplexing mystery. Baron 
Louis expressed the greatest incredulity when he 
heard of the loss of his famous jewel. It was at his 
banker’s in Paris, he declared. A telegram to the 
French house brought the reply that they had the 
stone sure enough, and that it was in safe-keeping; 
both literally and in metaphor. To this I answered 
by the pen of my friend at Scotland Yard that if the 
bankers would cause the stone to be examined for the 
second time, they would find it either to be false or 
of a quality so poor that it could never be mistaken 
by any expert for the Red Diamond of the Ford Val- 
ley. One more fact confirmed my suspicions. The 
jewel in Paris was a coarse stone, of little value, and 
as unlike the real gem as any stone could be. Plainly, 
the baron had been robbed, though when and by whom 
he had not the remotest idea. 

You will admit that this twentieth-century concep- 
tion of theft is not without its ingenuity. The dif- 
ference in value between a diamond of the first water 
and the third is as the difference between a sovereign 
and a shilling. Your latter-day thief, desiring some 
weeks of leisure in which to dispose of a well-known 
jewel, will sometimes be content with less than the 
full value of his enterprise. He substitutes a stone 
of dubious quality for one of undoubted purity. 
Madam, it may be, thinks her diamonds want clean- 
38 


FABOS BEGINS HIS STORY 


ing and determines to send them to the jeweler’s when 
she can spare them. That may be in six months’ 
time, when her beautiful gems are already sparkling 
upon the breast of a rajah or his latest favorite. 
And she never can be certain that her diamonds were 
as fine as she believed them to be. 

This I had long known. It is not a fact, however, 
which helps the police, nor have I myself at any time 
made much of it. Indeed, all that remained to me 
of the discovery upon Palling beach was the sugges- 
tion of a ship, and the possession of a slip of paper 
with its almost childish memorandum : “ Captain 
Three Fingers — Tuesday.” 


39 


CHAPTER V 


THE MAN WITH THE THREE FINGERS 

I WAITED three years to meet a man with three 
fingers, and met him at last in a ballroom at Ken- 
sington. Such is the plain account of an event which 
must divert for the moment the whole current of my 
life and, it may be, involve me in consequences so far- 
reaching and so perilous that I do well to ignore 
them. Let them be what they may, I am resolved 
to go on. 

Horace has told us that it is good to play the fool 
in season. My own idea of folly is a revolt against 
the conventional, a retrogression from the servitude 
of parochial civilization to the booths of unwashed 
Bohemia. In London I am a member of the Gold- 
smith Club. Its wits borrow money of me and repay 
me by condescending to eat my dinners. Their talk 
is windy but refreshing. I find it a welcome con- 
trast to that jargon of the incomprehensible which 
serves men of science over the walnuts. And there 
is a great deal of human nature to be studied in a 
borrower. The Archbishop of Canterbury himself 
40 


CAPTAIN THREE FINGERS 


could not be more dignified than some of those whose 
lives are to be saved by a trifling advance until Sat- 
urday. 

Seven such Bohemians went at my charge to the 
Fancy Fair and Fete at Kensington. I had meant 
to stop there half an hour — I remained three hours. 
If you say that a woman solved the riddle, I will 
answer, “ In a measure, yes.” Joan Fordibras in- 
troduced herself to me by thrusting a bunch of roses 
into my face. I changed two words with her and 
desired to change twenty. Some story in the girl’s 
expression, some power of soul shining in her eyes, 
enchanted me and held me fast. Nor was I deceived 
at all. The story, I said, had no moral to it. They 
were not the eyes of an innocent child of nineteen, as 
they should have been. They were the eyes of one 
who had seen and known the dark side of the lantern 
of life — who had suffered in her knowledge; who car- 
ried a great secret and had met a man who was pre- 
pared to fathom it. 

Joan Fordibras, that was her name. Judged by 
her impulsive manner, the brightness of her talk and 
the sweetness of her laugh, there was no more light- 
hearted girl in England that night. I alone, per- 
haps, in all that room could tell myself that she 
carried a heavy burden and would escape from it by 
force majeur of an indomitable will. Her talk I 
found vapid to the point of hysteria. She told me 
41 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


that she was half French and half American — “ just 
which you like to call me.” When I had danced 
twice with her, she presented me to her father, Gen- 
eral Fordibras — a fine military figure of a man, erect 
and manly and gifted with eyes which many a woman 
must have remembered. These things I observed at 
a glance, but that which I was presently to see escaped 
my notice for some minutes. General Fordibras, it 
appears, had but three fingers to his left hand. 

I say that I observed the fact negligently and did 
not for the moment take full cognizance of its sin- 
gularity. Alone in my chambers at the Albany, later 
on, I lighted my pipe and asked myself some sane 
questions. A man who had lost a finger of his left 
hand was not such a wonder, surely, that I could 
make much of it. And yet that sure instinct, which 
has never failed me in ten years of strenuous inves- 
tigation, refused stubbornly to pass the judgment 
by. Again in imagination I stood upon Palling 
beach and looked upon the figure of the dead sailor. 
The great sea had cast him out — for what.? The 
black paper — did not an avenging destiny write the 
words upon it.? “Captain Three Fingers!” Was 
I a madman then to construct a story for myself 
and to say : “ To-night I have seen the man whom 
the dead served? I have shaken him by the hand. I 
have asked him to my house.” Time will answer that 
question for good or ill. I know but this, that sit- 
42 


CAPTAIN THREE FINGERS 


ting there alone at the dead of night I seemed to be 
groping not in a house or a room or a street, but 
over the whole world itself for the momentous truth. 
None could share that secret with me. The danger 
and the ecstasy of it alike were my own. 

Who was this General Fordibras, and what did the 
daughter know of his life.?^ I have written that I 
invited them both to my house in SuflPolk, and thither 
they came in the spring of the year. Okyada, the 
shrewdest servant that ever earned the love and grati- 
tude of an affectionate master, could not help me to 
identify the general. We had never met him in our 
travels, never heard of him, could not locate him. I 
concluded that he was just what he pretended to be, 
so far as his birth and parentage were concerned — a 
Frenchman naturalized in America; a rich man to 
boot, and the owner of the steam yacht Connecticuty 
as he himself had told me. The daughter Joan 
astonished me by her grace and dignity and the ex- 
tent of her attainments. One less persistent would 
have put suspicion by and admitted that circum- 
stances justified no doubt about these people; that 
they were truly father and daughter traveling for 
pleasure in Europe, and that any other supposition 
must be an outrage. Indeed, I came near to believ- 
ing so myself. The pearls which had been stolen 
from me in Paris, was it not possible that the gen- 
eral had bought them in market overtly. To say that 
4 43 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


his agents had stolen them, and that his daughter 
wore them under my very nose, would be to write him 
down a maniac. I knew not what to think; the 
situation baffled me entirely. In moments of senti- 
ment I could recall the womanly tenderness and dis- 
tress of little Joan Fordibras and wonder that I had 
made so slight a response. There were other hours 
when I said : “ Beware, there is danger ; these people 
know you; they are setting a trap for you.” Let 
us blame human nature alone if this latter view came 
to be established at no distant date. Three men 
burgled my house in Suffolk in the month of June. 
Two of them escaped; the third put his hands upon 
the brass knob of my safe and the electric wires I had 
trained there held him as by a vice of fire. He fell 
shrieking at my feet, and in less than an hour I had 
his story. 

Of course I had been waiting for these men. An 
instinct such as mine can be diverted by no sugges- 
tions either romantic or platonic. From the first, 
my reason had said that General Fordibras might 
have come to Deepdene for no other reason than to 
prepare the way for the humbler instruments who 
should follow after. Okyada, my little Jap, he of 
the panther’s tread and the eagle eye — he stood sen- 
tinel during these weeks, and no blade of grass in all 
my park could have been trodden but that he would 
have known it. We were twice ready for all that 


CAPTAIN THREE FINGERS 


might occur. We knew that strangers had come 
down from London to Six Mile Bottom station an 
hour after they had arrived there. When they en- 
tered the house we determined to take but one of 
them. The others, racing frantically for liberty, 
believed that they had outwitted us. Poor fools! 
they were racing to the gates of a prison. 

I dragged the thief to his feet and began to 
threaten and to question him. He was a lad of 
twenty, I should say, hatchet-faced, and with tousley 
yellow hair. When he spoke to me, I discovered that 
he had the public school voice and manner; never to 
be mistaken under any circumstances. 

“ Now, come,” I said, “ here is seven years’ penal 
servitude waiting for you on the doorstep. Let me 
see that there is some spark of manhood left in you 
yet. Otherwise — ” but here I pointed again to the 
electric wires which had burned his hands, and he 
shuddered at my gesture. 

“ Oh, I’ll play the game,” he said ; ‘‘ you won’t 
get anything out of me. Do what you like — I’m 
not afraid of you.” 

It was a lie, for he was very much afraid of me. 
One glance told me that the boy was a coward. 

“ Okyada,” I said, calling my servant, “ here is 
some one who is not afraid of you. Tell him what 
they do to such people in Japan.” 

The little fellow played his part to perfection. He 

45 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


took the craven lad by both his hands and began to 
drag him back toward \he wires. A resounding 
shriek made me tremble for the nerves of my dear 
sister Harriet. I went to the door to reassure her 
and when I returned, the lad was on his knees, sob- 
bing like a woman. 

“ I can’t stand pain, I never could,” he said ; “ if 
you’re a gentleman, you won’t ask me to give away 
my pals.” 

“ Your pals,” I said quietly, “ being the refuse of 
Europe — rogues and bullies and blackmailers. A 
nice gang for a man who played cricket for his house 
at Harrow.” 

He looked at me amazed. 

“ How the devil do you know that.^’ ” 

“ You have the colors in your tie. Now stand up 
and answer my questions. Your silence cannot save 
the men who sent you here to-night. They knew 
perfectly well that you would fail. They wished you 
to fail and to lie to me when I caught you. I am not 
the man to be lied to. Understand that. I have cer- 
tain little secrets of my own. You have investigated 
one of them. Do not compel me to demonstrate the 
others to you.” 

I could see that he was thinking deeply. Presently 
he asked: 

“ What are you going to do with me ? What’s the 
game if I split ? ” 


46 


CAPTAIN THREE FINGERS 


Answer me truly,” I said, “ and I will keep you 
out of prison.” 

“ That’s all very fine ” 

“ I will keep you out of prison and try to save you 
from yourself.” 

“ You can’t do that, sir ” 

“We will see. There is at the heart of every man 
a seed of God’s sowing which neither time nor men 
may kill. I shall find it in yours, my lad. Oh, think 
of it: when you stood at the wicket in the playing 
fields of Harrow, your beloved school, your friends 
about you when you had a home, a mother, sisters, 
gentle hands to welcome you, was it to bring you to 
such a night as this.? No, indeed. There is some- 
thing which is sleeping but may wake again — a voice 
to call you; a hand upon your shoulder compelling 
you to look back. Let it be my hand, lad. Let mine 
be the voice which you hear. It will be kinder than 
others which may speak afterwards.” 

His face blanched oddly at my words. An hour 
ago he would have heard them with oaths and curses. 
Now, however, his bravado had gone with his cour- 
age. Perhaps I had made no real appeal to the old 
instincts of his boyhood. But his fear and his hope 
of some advantage of confession brought him to his 
knees. 

“ I can’t tell you much,” he stammered. 

“ You can tell me what you know.” 

47 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


“ Well, what about it, then? ” 

“ Ah, that is reason speaking. First, the name of 
the man.” 

“ What man do you speak of ? ” 

“ The man who sent you to this house. Was it 
from Paris, from Rome, from Vienna — you are wear- 
ing French boots, I see. Then it was Paris, was it 
not? ” 

“ Oh, call it Paris, if you like.” 

“ And the man — a Frenchman ? ” 

“ I can’t tell you. He spoke English. I met him 
at the Quaz-Arts and he introduced me to the others 
— a big man with a slash across his jaw and pock- 
marked. He kept me at a great hotel six weeks. I 
was dead out of luck — went over there to get work 
in a motor works and got chucked — well, I don’t say 
for what. Then Val came along ” 

“ Val — a Christian name? ” 

“ I heard the rest of it was Imroth. Some said 
he was a German Jew who had been in Buenos Ayres. 
I don’t know. We were to get the stuff easy and all 
cross back by different routes. Mine was Southamp- 
ton-Havre. I’d have been back in Paris to-morrow 
night but for you. Good God, what luck ! ” 

“ The best, perhaps, you ever had in your wretched 
life. Please to go on. You were to return to Paris 
— with the diamonds.” 

“ Oh, no. Rouge la Gloire carried those — on the 

48 


CAPTAIN THREE FINGERS 


ship, of course. I was to cross the scent. You don’t 
know Val. There isn’t another like him in Paris. If 
he thought I’d told you this, he’d murder the pair 
of us though he crossed two continents to do it. I’ve 
seen him at it. My God, if you’d seen all I’ve seen. 
Dr. Fabos ! ” 

“ You have my name, it appears. I am not so 
fortunate.” 

He hung down his head; and I saw with no little 
satisfaction that he blushed like a girl. 

“ I was Harry Avenhill once,” he said. 

“ The son of Dr. Avenhill of Cambridge ” 

“ It’s as true as night.” 

“Thank God that your father is dead! We will 
speak of him again — when the seed has begun to grow 
a little warm. I want now to go back a step. This 
ship in which my diamonds were to go.” 

He started and looked at me with wild eyes. 

“ I never said nothing about any ship.” 

“ No ; then I was dreaming it. You yourself were 
to return to Paris via Havre and Southampton, I 
think, while this fellow Rouge la Gloire, he went from 
Newhaven.” 

“ How did you know that.? ” 

“ Oh, I know many things. The ship, then, is 
waiting for him — shall we say in Sho reham harbor.? ” 

It was a pure guess upon my part ; but I have never 
seen a man so struck by astonishment and wonder. 
49 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


For some minutes he could not say a single word. 
When he replied, it was in the tone of one who could 
contest with me no longer. 

“ If you know, you know,” he said ; “ but look here. 
Dr. Fabos, you have spoken well to me and I’ll speak 
well to you. Leave Val Imroth alone. You haven’t 
a month to live if you don’t.” 

I put my hand upon his shoulder and turned him 
round to look me full in the face. 

“ Harry Avenhill,” said I, “ did they tell you, then, 
that Dr. Fabos was a woman Listen to me, now. 
I start to-morrow to hunt these people down. You 
shall go with me; I will find a place for you upon 
my yacht. We will seek this Polish Jew together — 
him and others ; and, by the help of God above me, 
we will never rest until we have found them.” 

He could not reply to me. I summoned Okyada 
and bade him find a bedroom for Mr. Harry Avenhill. 

“We leave by the early train for Newcastle,” I 
said ; “ see that Mr. Avenhill is called in time. And 
please to tell my sister that I am coming to have a 
long talk with her.” 

My poor sister ! However will she live if there are 
no slippers to be aired or man’s untidiness to be cor- 
rected.^ Her love for me is very sweet and true. I 
could wish almost that my duty would leave me here 
in England to enjoy it. 


50 


CHAPTER VI 


A CHALLENGE FROM A WOMAN 

I HAD given the name of White Wings to my new 
turbine yacht; and this, I confess, provokes the mer- 
riment of mariners both ancient and youthful. We 
are painted a dirty gray and have the true torpedo 
bows — to say nothing of our low-lying stern rounded 
like a shark’s back and just as formidable to look 
upon when we begin to make our twenty-five knots. 
The ship is entirely one after my own heart. I will 
not deny that an ambition of mastery has affected 
me from my earliest days. My castles must be im- 
pregnable be they upon the sea or ashore. And the 
yacht which Yarrow built for me has no superior 
upon any ocean. 

The boat, I say, was built upon the Thames and 
engined upon the Tyne. I remember that I ordered 
it three days after I first wrote the word “ ship ” in 
my diary ; upon a morning when the notion first came 
to me that the sea, and not the land, harbored the 
world’s great criminals, and that upon the sea alone 
would they be taken. To none other than the pages 
51 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


of my diary may I reveal this premonition yet awhile. 
The police would mock it ; the public remain incredu- 
lous. And so I keep my secret; and I carry it with 
me — God knows to what haven. 

We left Newcastle, bravely enough, upon the sec- 
ond day of September in the year 1904. A mem- 
ber of the Royal Yacht Squadron by favor and 
friendship of the late Prince Valikoff of Moscow, 
whose daughter’s life he declared that I saved, we 
flew the White Ensign and were named, I do not 
doubt, for a Government ship. Few would have 
guessed that this was the private yacht of an eccen- 
tric Englishman ; that he had embarked upon one of 
the wildest quests ever undertaken by an amateur, 
and that none watched him go with greater interest 
than his friend Murray of Scotland Yard. But 
such was the naked truth. And even Murray had 
but a tithe of the secret. 

A long, wicked-looking yacht ! I liked to hear my 
friends say that. When I took them aboard and 
showed them the superb engines which drove the tur- 
bines, the spacious quarters for my men beneath the 
cupola of the bows — and aft, my own cabins, fur- 
nished with some luxury and no little taste I hope, 
then it was of the Hotel Ritz they talked, and not of 
any wickedness at all. My own private room was 
just such a cabin as I have always desired to find upon 
a yacht. Deep, sloping windows of heavy glass per- 
52 


A CHALLENGE 


mitted me to see the white foaming wake astern and 
the blue horizon above it. I had to my hand the 
books that I love ; there were pictures of my own 
choosing cunningly let into the panels of rich Span- 
ish mahogany. Ornaments of silver added dignity, 
but no display. Not a spacious room, I found that 
its situation abaft gave me that privacy I sought, 
and made of it, as it were, a house apart. Here none 
entered who had not satisfied my little Jap that his 
business was urgent. I could write for hours with 
no more harassing interruption than that of a gull 
upon the wing or the echo of the ship’s bells heard 
afar. The world of men and cities lay down yonder 
below the ether. The great sea shut its voices out, 
and who would regret them or turn back to hear their 
message ? 

Let pride in my ship, then, be the first emotion I 
shall record in this account of her voyages. Cer- 
tainly the summer smiled upon us when we started 
down the turbid, evil-smelling river Tyne and began 
to dip our whale-nosed bows to the North Sea. The 
men I had shipped for the service, attracted by the 
terms of my off*er and drawn from the cream of the 
yachting ports of England, were as fine a lot as ever 
trod a spotless deck. Benson, my chief engineer, 
used to be one of Yarrow’s most trusted experts. 
Captain Larry had been almost everything nautical 
both afloat and ashore. A clean-shaven, blue-eyed, 
53 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


hard-faced man, I have staked my fortune upon his 
courage. And how shall I forget Cain and Abel, the 
breezy trim quartermasters from County Cork — to 
say nothing of Balaam, the Scotch boatswain, or 
Merry, the little cockney cook. These fellows had 
been taken aside and told, one by one, frankly that 
the voyage spelled danger — and after danger, reward. 
They accepted my conditions with a frankness which 
declared their relish for them. I had but three re- 
fusals, and one of these, Harry Avenhill, had no title 
to be a chooser. 

Such was the crew which steamed with me, away 
from gloomy Newcastle, southward, I knew not to 
what seas or harborage. To be just, certain ideas 
and conjectures of my own dictated a vague course 
and were never absent from my reckoning. I believed 
that the ocean had living men’s secrets in her pos- 
session and that she would yield them up to me. Let 
Fate, I said, stand at the tiller and Prudence be her 
handmaiden. But one man in all Europe knew that 
I intended to call at the port of Havre and after- 
wards to steam for Cape Town. To others I told 
a simpler tale. The yacht was my hobby ; the voy- 
age a welcome term of idleness. They rarely pur- 
sued the subject further. 

Now, I had determined to call at the port of Havre, 
not because I had any business to do there, but because 
intelligence had come to me that Joan Fordibras was 
54 * 


A CHALLENGE 


spending some weeks at Dieppe, and that I should 
find her at the Hotel de Palais. We made a good 
passage down the North Sea, and on the morning 
following our arrival I stood among a group of lazy 
onlookers who watched the bathers go down to the 
sea at Dieppe and found their homely entertainment 
therein. Joan Fordibras was one of the last to bathe, 
but many eyes followed her with interest, and I per- 
ceived that she was an expert swimmer possessed of 
a graceful figure and of a daring in the water which 
had few imitators among her sex. Greatly admired 
and evidently very well known, many flatterers sur- 
rounded her when she had dressed ; and I must have 
passed her by at least a dozen times before she sud- 
denly recognized me and came running up to greet me. 

“ Why, it’s Dr. Fabos of London, isn’t it, now.'’ ” 
she exclaimed. “ I thought I could not be mistaken. 
Whoever would have believed that so grave a person 
would spend his holiday at Dieppe.” 

“ Two days,” said I, answering her to the point ; 
“ I am yachting around the coast, and some good in- 
stinct compelled me to come here.” 

She looked at me, I thought, a little searchingly. 
A woman’s curiosity was awake in spite of her nine- 
teen years. None the less, she made a pretty picture 
enough; and the scene about stood for a worthy 
frame. Who does not know the summer aspect of a 
French watering-place — the fresh blue sea, the yel- 
55 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


low beach, the white houses with the green jalousies, 
the old Gothic churches with their crazy towers, 
laughter and jest and motor cars everywhere. Made- 
moiselle La France tripping over the shingle with 
well-poised ankle, her bathing dress a very miracle 
of ribbons and diminuendos — the life, the vivacity, 
the joy of it, and a thousand parasols to roof the 
whispers in. So I saw Mistress Joan; amid such a 
scene she, this shrewd little schemer of nineteen, began 
to suspect me. 

“ Who told you that I was at Dieppe ” she asked 
quickly. 

“ Instinct, the best of guides. Where else could 
you have been ? ” 

“ Why not at Trouville ? ” 

“ Because I am not there.” 

“ My, what a reason. Did you expect to find my 
father here.? ” 

“ Certainly not. He sailed in his yacht from 
Cherbourg three days ago.” 

“ Then I shall call you a wizard. Please tell me 
why you wanted to see me.” 

“ You interested me. Besides, did not I say that 
I would come.? Would you have me at Eastbourne or 
Cromer — cooped up with women who talk in stares 
and men whose ambitions rot in bunkers .? I came to 
see you. That is a compliment. I wished to say 
good-by to you before you return to America.” 

56 


A CHALLENGE 


“ But we are not going to Amer — that is, of 
course, my home is there. Did not father tell you 
that.? ” 

“ Possibly. I have a poor head for places. There 
are so many in America.” 

“ But I just love them,” she said quickly. And 
then, with mischief in her eyes, she added: “ No one 
minds other people trying to find out all about them 
in America.” 

It was a sly thrust and told me much. This child 
did not carry a secret, I said; she carried the fear 
that there might be a secret ; I had need of all my tact. 
How Fate would laugh at me if I fell in love with 
her! But that was a fool’s surmise and not to be 
considered. 

“ Curiosity,” I said, “ may have one of two pur- 
poses. It may desire to befriend or to injure. Please 
consider that, when you have the time to consider 
anything. I perceive that there are at least a dozen 
young men waiting to tell you that you are very 
beautiful. Do not let me forbid them. As we are 
staying at the same hotel ” 

“ What, have you gone to the Palais ? ” 

“ Is there any other house while you are in 
Dieppe .? ” 

She flushed a little and turned away her head. I 
saw that I had frightened her; and, reflecting upon 
the many mistakes that so-called tact may make some- 

57 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 

times, I invented a poor excuse and left her to her 
friends. 

Plainly, her eyes had challenged me. And the 
Man, I said, must not hesitate to pick up the glove 
which my Lady of Nineteen had thrown down so 
bravely. 


58 


CHAPTER VII 


MY FRIEND MCSHANUS 

I THOUGHT that I knew no one in Dieppe; but I 
was wrong, as you shall see, and I had scarcely set 
foot in the hotel when I ran against no other than 
Timothy McShanus, the journalist of Fleet Street, 
and found myself in an instant listening to his odd 
medley of fact and fancy. For the first time for 
many years, he was in no immediate need of a little 
loan. 

“ Faith,” says he, “ ’tis the best thing that ever 
ye heard. The lord mayor of this very place is 
feting and feasting the county councillors — and me, 
Timothy McShanus, is amongst ’em. Don’t ask how 
it came about. I’ll grant ye there is another Mc- 
Shanus in the Parlyment, a rare consated divil of a 
man that they may have meant to ask to the rejoicin’. 
Well, the letter came to worthier hands, and, by the 
honor of ould Ireland, says I, ’tis this McShanus 
that will eat their victuals. So here I am, me bhoy, 
and ye’ll order what ye like and my beautiful La 
France shall pay for it. Shovels of fire upon me 
head, if I shame their liquor.” 

5 59 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


I managed to arrest his ardor and discovering that 
he had enjoyed the hospitality of Dieppe for three 
days upon another man’s invitation, and that the end 
of the pleasant tether had been reached, I asked him 
to dine with me, and he accepted like a shot. 

“ ’Tis for the pleasure of me friend’s company. 
To-morrow ye shall dine with me and the mayor, me 
old friend the mayor that I have known since Tues- 
day morning. We’ll have fine carriages afterwards 
and do the woods and the forests. Ye came here. I’ll 
be saying, because ye heard that the star of Timothy 
McShanus was on high. ’Twould be that no doubt — 
what the divil else should bring such an astronomer 
man to Dieppe.” 

I kept it from him a little while; but when he 
rejoined me at the dinner table later on, the first per- 
son he clapped his eyes upon was little Joan Fordi- 
bras, sitting with a very formidable-looking chaperone 
three tables from our own. The expression upon his 
face at this passed all simile. I feared that every 
waiter in the room would overhear his truly Celtic 
outburst. 

“ Mother of me ancestors ! ” he cried, “ but ’tis the 
little shepherdess herself. Ean Fabos, have shame to 
admit it. ’Twas neither the stars of the celestial 
heaven nor the beauty of the firmament that carried 
ye to this shore. And me that was naming it the wit 
and the beauty of me native counthry. Oh, Tim- 
60 


MY FRIEND McSHANUS 


othy McShanus, how are the mighty fallen! No 
longer ” 

I hustled him to his seat and showed my displeasure 
very plainly. As for little Joan Fordibras, while 
she did not hear his words, his manner set her laugh- 
ing, and in this she was imitated by French and Eng- 
lish women roundabout. Indeed, I defy the greatest 
of professors to withstand this volatile Irishman or 
to be other than amused by his amazing eccen- 
tricities. 

“ We’ll drink champagne to her, Fabos, me bhoy,” 
he whispered as the soup was served ; “ sure, matri- 
mony is very like that same wine — a good thing at 
the beginning, but not so good when you take over- 
much of it. ’Twould be married I had been meself 
to the Lady Clara Lovenlow of Kildare but for the 
blood of Saxons in her veins. Aye, and a poor divil 
of a man I would be this same time if I had done it. 
Sure, think of Timothy McShanus with his feet in 
the family slippers and his daughters singing the 
‘ Lost Chord ’ to him ! Him that is the light of 
the Goldsmith Club. Who goeth home even with the 
milk ! Contemplate it, me bhoy, and say what a nar- 
row escape from that same designing wench he has 
had.” 

He rattled on and I did not interrupt him. To be 
plain, I was glad of his company. Had it appeared 
to Joan Fordibras that I was quite alone in the hotel, 
61 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


that I knew no friends in Dieppe, and had no possible 
object in visiting the town but to renew acquaintance 
with her during her father’s absence — had this been 
so, then the difficulties of our intercourse were mani- 
fest. Now, however, I might shelter my intentions 
behind this burly Irishman. Indeed, I was delighted 
at the encounter. 

“ McShanus,” I said, “ don’t be a fool. Or if you 
must be one, don’t include me in the family relation- 
ship. Do I look like a man whose daughters will be 
permitted to sing the ‘ Lost Chord ’ to him ? ” 

“ Ye can never judge by looks, Docthor. Me 
friend Luke O’Brien, him that wrote ‘ The Philoso- 
phy of Loneliness ’ in the newspapers, he’s three chil- 
dren in County Cork and runs a gramophone store. 
‘ Luke,’ says I, ‘ ’tis a fine solitude ye have entirely.’ 

‘ Be d d to that,’ says he — and we haven’t spoken 

since.” 

“ Scarcely delicate to mention it, McShanus. Let 
me relieve your feelings by telling you that my 
yacht White Wings will be here to-morrow night to 
fetch me.” 

“ Glory be to God, ye’ll be safe on the sea. I mis- 
trust the colleen entirely. Look at the eyes of it. 
D’ye see the little foot peepin’ in and out — ‘ like mice 
beneath the petticoat,’ says the poet. She’s anxious 
to show ye she’s a small foot and won’t cost ye much 
in shoe leather. Turn your head away when she 
62 


MY FRIEND McSHANUS 


laughs, Ean, me bhoy. ’Tis a wicked bit of a laugh, 
and to a man’s destruction.” 

“ I must remember this, McShanus. Do you think 
you could entertain the old lady while I talk to 
her.?” 

“ What, the she-cat with the man’s hair and the 
telescope.? The Lord be good to me. I’d sooner do 
penal servitude.” 

“ Now, come, you can see by her glance that she 
is an authority upon some of the ’isms, McShanus. 
I know that she plays golf. I saw her carrying sticks 
this very afternoon.” 

“ To break heads at a fair. Is Timothy Mc- 
Shanus fallen to this.? To tread at the heels of a 
she-man with sticks in her hands. Faith, ’twould be 
a fancy fair and feet entirely ! ” 

“ Drink some more champagne, Timothy. Brace 
yourself up to it ! ” 

He shook his head and lapsed into a melancholy 
silence. Certainly his nerves required bracing up for 
the ordeal, and many glasses of ’89 Pommery went 
to that process. When dinner was done, we strolled 
out upon the veranda, and found Miss Fordibras and 
her chaperone. Miss Aston, drinking coffee at one of 
the little tables in the vestibule. They made way for 
us at once, as though we had been expected, and I 
presented McShanus to them immediately. 

“ Mr. Timothy McShanus, the author of ‘ Ireland 
63 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


and Her Kings.’ He’s descended from the last of 
them, I believe. Is it not so, McShanus ? ” 

“ From all of them. Dr. Fabos. Me father ruled 
Ireland in the past and me sons will rule it in the 
future. Ladies, your servant. Be not after calling 
me an historian. ’Tis a poet I am when not in the 
police courts.” 

Miss Aston, the elderly lady with the short hair 
and the glasses, took McShanus seriously, I am afraid. 
She began to speak to him of Browning and Walt 
Whitman and Omar Khayyam. I drew my chair 
near to Miss Fordibras and took my text from the 
common talk. 

“No one reads poetry, nowadays,” I said ; “ we 
have all grown too cynical. Even McShanus does not 
consider his immortal odes worth publishing.” 

“ They will perish with me in an Abbey tomb,” said 
he; “a thousand years from now, ’tis the professors 
from New Zealand who will tell the world what Mc- 
Shanus wrote.” 

Miss Aston suggested a little tritely that much 
modern poetry should be so treated. 

“ Time is the true critic,” she exclaimed majestic- 
ally, and McShanus looked at me as who should say : 
“ She has some experience of that same Time.” 

I turned to Joan Fordibras and asked her to defend 
the poets. 

“ The twentieth century gives us no solitudes,” I 

64 


MY FRIEND McSHANUS 


said ; “ you cannot have poets without solitudes. We 
live in crowds nowadays. Even yachting is a little 
old-fashioned. Men go where other men can see them 
show off. Vanity takes them there; even bridge is 
vanity, the desire to do better than the other man.” 

Miss Aston demurred. 

“ There are some women who know nothing of 
vanity,” she said stonily. “We Hve within ourselves 
and our lives are our own. Our whole existence is a 
solitude. We are most truly alone when many sur- 
round us.” 

“ ’Tis a compliment to my friend Fabos,” cried Mc- 
Shanus triumphantly ; “ let me have the honor to 
escort ye to the Casino, lady, for such a man is no 
company for us. No doubt he’ll bring Miss Fordi- 
bras over when they’re done with the poets. Will ye 
not, doctor ? ” 

I said that I should be delighted, and when the 
cloaks had been found we all set out for the Casino. 
Timothy was playing his part well, it appeared. I 
found myself alone with Joan Fordibras presently, 
and neither of us had the desire to hurry on to the 
Casino. In truth, the season at Dieppe had already 
begun to wane and there were comparatively few 
people abroad on the parade by the seashore. We 
walked apart, a great moon making golden islands 
of light upon the sleeping sea and the distant music 
of the Casino band in our ears. 

65 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


“ This time to-morrow,” I said, “ my yacht will be 
nearer Ushant than Dieppe.” 

She looked up at me a little timidly. I thought 
that I had rarely seen a face at once so pathetic and 
so beautiful. 

“ Away to the solitudes ? ” she asked quickly. 

“ Possibly,” I said ; “ but that is the point about 
yachting. You set out for nowhere, and if you don’t 
like it you come back again.” 

“ And you positively don’t know where you are 
going ” 

“ I positively don’t know where I am going.” 

“ But I do,” she said. “ You are going to follow 
my father.” 

I had never been so amazed in my life. To say 
that I was astonished would be to misrepresent the 
truth. I knew already that she suspected me ; but 
this challenge from a mere child, this outspoken de- 
fiance, it passed all comprehension. 

“Why should I follow General Fordibras?” I 
asked her as quickly. 

“ I do not know. Dr. Fabos. But you are follow- 
ing him ; you suspect him and you wish to do us an 
injury.” 

“My dear, child,” I said, “God forbid that I 
should do any man an injury. You do not mean what 
you say. The same cleverness which prompts this, 
tells you also that anything I may be doing is right 
66 


MY FRIEND McSHANUS 


and proper to do and should be done. May we not 
start from that.^ ” 

I turned about and faced her. We had come down 
almost to the water’s edge by this time ; the lazy waves 
were rolling at our feet ; the waves of that sea I pur- 
posed to cross in quest of a truth which should as- 
tonish the world. The hour was momentous to both 
our lives. We knew it so to be and did not flinch 
from it. 

“ Oh,” she said with tears in her eyes, “ if I could 
only believe you to be my friend.” 

‘‘ Miss Fordibras,” I said, “ believe it now because 
I tell you so. Your friend whatever may befall. 
Please to call me that.” 

I believe that she was about to confess to me the 
whole story of her life. I have always thought that 
it might have been so at that moment. But the words 
remained unspoken — for a shadow fell upon us as we 
talked, and, looking up, I perceived the figure of a 
man so near to us that his outstretched hand could 
have touched my own. And instantly perceiving it 
also, she broke away from me and begged me to take 
her to the Casino. 

“ Miss Aston will be anxious,” she cried, excited 
upon compulsion, “ please let us go. It must be nine 
o’clock.” 

I rejoined that I was quite in ignorance of the 
fact; but taking her cue, I led the way from the 

67 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


place and turned toward the Casino. The light of 
an arc lamp as we went, showed me her young face 
as pale as the moonbeams upon the still sea about us. 
I understood that the man had been watching her 
and that she was afraid of him. Indeed, no artifice 
could conceal so plain a fact. 

Of this, however, she would not speak at all. In 
the Casino she went straight to the side of the for- 
midable Miss Aston and began to babble some idle 
excuse for our delay. McShanus himself was play- 
ing at petits chevaux and making the room ring with 
his exclamations. I understood that the hour for 
confidence had passed and that the words she had 
meant to speak to me might go forever unspoken. 

Was it well that this should be.^ God knows. The 
path of my duty lay clearly marked before me. Not 
even the hand of Joan Fordibras must turn me aside 
therefrom. I could but hope that time would lift the 
shadows and let me see the sun beyond them. 


68 


CHAPTER VIII 


WE VISIT AFRICA 

“ And what in Truth’s name brings ye to such a 
shore as this ? ” 

I had been standing to spy out the low African 
coast and had forgotten the very existence of Tim- 
othy McShanus until he spoke to me. Just, indeed, 
his question appeared to be. Why had I left Europe, 
my home, my friends to visit this desolate No Man’s 
Land, speaking to us as it did of the ultimate desola- 
tion and the far kingdoms of solitude.? Why had I 
chosen such a course — and almost greater wonder, 
why was such a man as Timothy McShanus aboard 
with me.? 

We had left Dieppe almost a month ago. The 
fastest yacht afloat, as I loved to call our White 
Wings y had permitted us to call for a day or two at 
Gib, to put in at Porto Grande in the Cape de Verde 
Islands ; thence to cruise almost at our leisure by 
the great flat African shore until the hills began to 
show themselves beyond the surf, and we knew that 
we were gazing upon English land once more. The 
69 


The diamond ship 


question “ why ” remained none the less an enigma 
to the ship. The men could not but call their em- 
ployer a crank and just marvel at his ideas. Tim- 
othy McShanus alone ventured to exclaim upon them. 

“ Ye pick me up at Dieppe,” said he, “ and tell me 
’tis a bit of a pleasure voyage. I don’t refuse ye, 
thinking that we will sail away to Spain and twirl 
awhile with the senoritas ; but divil a senorita in all 
the journey. Ye dose me with Spanish wine at Gib- 
raltar and say I shall keep Christmas in Pall Mall — 
me that was never out of London a week but I fell 
to weeping for me chilthren. And here we are in 
the Old Man’s counthry, and swim ye must, would 
ye go ashore. Ah, be honest with a man, Ean, me 
bhoy. Ye’re afther something deep, and none but 
the little Jap has the secret of it. Say ’tis so, and 
I, Timothy, will trust ye to the world’s end.” 

“ Timothy,” I rejoined, for the time had come 
when I must speak openly with him, “ you know me 
well enough to say that I am neither a fool nor a child. 
I’ll tell you in a word why I came to Africa. It was 
to learn who stole my bronze pearls which Joan Fordi- 
bras wore at Kensington.” 

It is never difficult to surprise Timothy McShanus, 
for he is a man of many exclamations. I think, how- 
ever, that he approached the confines of astonishment 
that morning. Turning about, he looked me full in 
the face, then placed his immense hand affectionately 
70 


WE VISIT AFRICA 


upon my shoulder. The measure of his brogue dis- 
played his interest. 

“ ’Tis no jest, Ean? ” 

“No jest at all, Timothy.’’ 

“ Ye believe that the truth is afloat upon the sea? ” 

“ I believe it so much that I have spent a fifth of 
my fortune in fitting out this yacht, and will spend 
three-fifths more if expenditure will help me to the 
truth.” 

“ And there is no man alive but me knows the 
secret ? ” 

“ There is a man and woman. I have told it to 
neither. The man is my Japanese servant, from 
whom nothing under heaven is hidden. The woman 
— for in knowledge she is such — is Joan Fordibras.” 

He shook his head as though in a measure disap- 
pointed. 

“Your Jap is Satan himself; I’ll not deny him. 
The girl’s another matter. ’Tis a maniac the ould 
gentleman would be to steal your jewels and to let 
his daughter wear ’em under your very nose. Fabos, 
me bhoy, ye don’t believe that? ” 

“ I will tell you when the time comes, Timothy. It 
should not be far distant. On the other hand, a 
year may find me still afloat. Don’t be alarmed, 
man. I promise you that the first steamer leaving 
Cape Town after our arrival shall carry you to your 
beloved Pall Mall. My own duty is plain. I can- 
71 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


not shirk it let the consequences be what they may. 
At least, you have had a pleasant voyage, Timothy ? ” 

“ A pleasant voyage and the best of company. 
Your Japanese pitched me across the cabin yesterday 
for to show me how they do it in his counthry. Ye 
have a Scotchman aboard who makes me cross the 
Equather in a kilt, and two vagabonds from County 
Cork who tell me the moon is a stayoner on the star- 
board bow. I play piquet with ye all day and ye 
win the savings of a lifetime — seven pounds, four 
shillings and twopence, as I’m a living man. Oh, ’tis 
a pleasant voyage, sure enough, and for what, Fabos? 
You’re a magician, could you tell me that.?^ ” 

“No magician at all, Timothy. Put the same 
question to me at eight bells to-night and I may be 
able to answer you. If I am not very much mistaken, 
the smoke of it is on yonder horizon now. I will tell 
you when it is safe to speak — neither a minute sooner 
nor later.” 

This, perhaps, I said with some warmth of earnest- 
ness which he could not mistake. To be candid, it 
was ridiculous that so small a thing could excite me, 
and yet excited I was as I had not been since the first 
conception of my beliefs came to me on the beach at 
Palling long months ago. Just a haze of smoke upon 
the horizon, just the knowledge that some other ship 
piloted us in our course down the southern shores of 
Africa. That was all we saw, and yet no man aboard 
72 


WE VISIT AFRICA 

but did not see it with beating heart and nerves high 
strung. 

‘‘ What do you make of it, Captain Larry ? ” I 
asked that ruddy-faced, unemotional officer, who had 
come to my side during the talk. “ This is no course 
for tramps, is it? You would not expect to meet a 
liner so near the shore.” 

“ Certainly not, sir. If she were a copper ship 
to Port Nolloth, she wouldn’t be doing ten knots. 
Yonder boat’s doing fifteen.” 

“ And her course is due south.” 

“ Is due south, sir.” 

“ Would you be surprised to hear that she was 
putting in to St. Helena Bay ? ” 

“ After what you have told me, sir, nothing would 
surprise me. It’s wonder enough to find any ship 
here at all, sir.” 

I admitted it to be so. There are no more pleas- 
ing moments in our lives than those confirming the 
truth of some great idea which we have deduced from 
a certain set of circumstances. There, upon the far 
sea, I found one of the links in the chain of my con- 
jecture stood revealed. I had been less than human 
if my heart had not quickened at the spectacle. 

“ Captain,” I said, “ the men understand, I think, 
that our object is to find out why that ship visits 
St. Helena Bay, and where she is bound when she 
quits it. The rest I leave to you and the engines. 
73 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


If our purpose is discovered, it will be immediately 
frustrated. I trust to your good sense that noth- 
ing of the kind shall happen.” 

“ Nothing of the kind will happen, sir,” he said 
quietly ; “ we are going dead slow already. Mr. Ben- 
son has his instructions.” 

I listened to the beat of our powerful engines, and, 
as he said, they were going dead slow. Scarce a haze 
of smoke loomed above our ugly squat funnel. The 
men began to talk in low whispers, still watching the 
black cloud upon the horizon. That we were follow- 
ing a strange ship and did not wish to be discovered, 
had been made known to them all. This in itself was 
sufficient to whet a seaman’s appetite for adventure; 
but when, on the top of it. Captain Larry called them 
immediately to gun drill, then, I say, they braced 
themselves up as true handy men with honest work 
before them. 

This drill we had studied together since we left 
Ushant behind us. It had been in my mind since the 
day I bought the ship of Yarrow and stipulated for 
machine guns fore and aft and a fitted torpedo-tube, 
that the aggressor might, in due time, become the 
aggrieved. For this I took with me no less than five 
able seamen who had served their time in the Naval 
Reserves, and passed thence with credit. “ He who 
treads upon a snake should wear thick boots.” The 
old saying had become my watchword; and, not for- 
74 . 


WE VISIT AFRICA 


getting that we set out to spy upon some of the most 
dangerous and cunning of the world’s criminals, I 
made ready for that emergency. 

The night would tell me the truth. Who could 
wonder if I waited for the night as a man for the 
rewards which months of dreaming had promised him. 


G 


75 


CHAPTER IX 


THE NIGHT IS NOT SILENT 

I DINED with McShanus at eight o’clock that night 
and played a little piquet with him afterwards. He 
had now been admitted to my confidence and knew a 
good deal of that which I surmised. 

“ ’Tis your opinion, then,” he had said, “ that 
the men on yonder ship are going to receive the 
diamonds stolen from the mines of Africa.? Man, 
could ye prove it, ’twould be the sensation of the 
universe.” 

I answered by reminding him of the immense value 
of the diamonds stolen every year from the mines 
of Kimberley alone. These, in spite of an astute 
police and a supervision passing all experience, make 
their way ultimately to Europe and are trafficked in 
by the less scrupulous dealers. How is this to be 
accounted for.? A similar question would ask how is 
it possible that stolen jewels, to the value of some 
millions of money or thereabouts, are hidden success- 
fully from the world’s police every year.? 

“ Timothy,” I said, “ I have formed the opinion 

76 


THE NIGHT IS NOT SILENT 

that these jewels are hidden upon the sea. This ship 
we are following will receive a parcel of stolen dia- 
monds between here and St. Helena Bay. She will 
carry them to a larger vessel now afloat upon the 
Atlantic. That greater ship, could you board her, 
would tell you the story of many a famous robbery, 
show the contents of many rifled safes, enlighten you 
as to the whereabouts of many a great jewel now 
advertised for by the police. I hope that the day 
will come when I shall step on the deck of that ship 
and that you will accompany me, Timothy. One 
thing I have never doubted. It is my friend’s 
courage.” 

He liked the compliment, and banged the cabin table 
with his flst to emphasize it. 

“ I’d cross mountains to go aboard her,” he said 
with real feeling. “ Don’t think ill of me if I doubt 
’tis a mare’s nest ye are afther and that there may 
be disappointments. Ye said the night would tell 
us. Blame nobody if the night is silent, Ean, me 
bhoy.” 

“ It will not be silent, Timothy. Here is Captain 
Larry tumbling down the companion to tell us so. 
He has come to say that there is a message and that 
he has heard it. Now listen to him.” 

Honest Benjamin Larry, true son of Portsmouth 
despite his name, came blundering into the cabin as 
though the ship were afire. I had but to take one 

77 


THE DIAIMOND SHIP 


look at his bright eyes to know that he was there to 
justify me and to say that the night was eloquent. 

“ Doctor,” he cried, too excited almost to speak at 
all, “ please to go up. There’s something happen- 
ing.” 

We raced up the ladder together, McShanus with 
an agility that must have spoken of his lost youth. 
It would have been then about ten o’clock at night, 
four bells of the first watch, as the seamen have it. 
The night was intensely dark and void of stars ; a 
long, gentle ground swell lifted the yacht lazily and 
rolled her as though she had been a cradle rocked 
by a loving hand. I perceived at once that our en- 
gines had been stopped and that we carried no lights. 
The African shore w^as hardly visible, but the thun- 
der of distant surf said that we still hugged it. The 
crew themselves were all at the bows. I did not fail 
to notice that the machine guns were uncovered and 
the magazine hatch already removed. 

It really was wonderful how the good fellows acted 
in that moment of discovery. Had they been trained 
upon the decks of a British man-of-war I could have 
looked neither for a warmer zeal nor a finer prudence. 
None spoke aloud or gave tongue to the excitement 
which possessed him. Quietly making way for me 
as I came up, the great boatswain, whom they called 
Balaam, pointed with his fat hand at the scene which 
engrossed their attention and waited for my remarks. 
78 


THE NIGHT IS NOT SILENT 


Others nodded their heads expressively. It was as 
though to say : “ The master is right after all.” I 
could have asked no greater compliment. 

And what did we see to hold us there, engrossed.? 
A low light flashing upon the water, perhaps the third 
of a mile from our own deck; other lights from a 
steamer’s deck plainly answering the signal. A man 
needed to be no wizard to say that a boat had put 
out from some harborage near by and now exchanged 
signals with the steamer we had followed all day. 
But this was very far from being all; for as we 
stood there, one of the ships suddenly turned a 
searchlight upon the boat that came out to her, and 
we saw the whole picture, as in vivid radiance, cast 
upon the black screen of the night. 

There were two vessels, as we had surmised, and 
one of them had the shape and the manner of a 
foreign-built gunboat; the other seemed to be little 
more than a sea-going launch, speedy and snakelike, 
and carrying no more than three men. We could 
plainly see that a rope ladder had been slung out 
from the apparent gunboat, and that one of the 
hands from the launch meant to go aboard her. A 
great cloud of crimson smoke above the funnel of 
the larger vessel denoted her preparation for a 
speedy voyage and the brief aspect of her call. In- 
deed, to be precise, she did not lie-to more than 
fifteen minutes in all; and the man who had gone 
79 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


aboard her had already descended the ladder, and 
had cast the launch off, before she discovered our 
presence and knew that she was watched. 

As a flash of light upon a dark horizon, so it 
happened. The quivering rays of the great lantern 
skimming the limpid sea, as it were jestingly on the 
part of the man who guided them, fell for an instant 
upon our decks, and revealed us there as a black 
shape, threatening and undeclared. Instantly signal 
guns were fired from the shore; the lights were ex- 
tinguished ; the after darkness fell impenetrably and 
unrelieved, save where the crimson flame hovered 
above the gunboat’s funnel. Then for the first time 
a voice spoke upon my own yacht. It was that of 
Captain Larry, and he uttered a truth which was 
plain to all. 

“ They’re running due west, sir — to the open sea. 
It is as you said it would be.” 

“ And will be afterwards. Captain Larry. Full 
steam ahead, if you please. We must not lose sight 
of them again.” 

“Whatever it may cost, sir.?” 

“ It will cost nothing, captain.” 

To the men I said: 

“ Fifty pounds apiece, my lads, if you track that 
steamer to port.” 

They answered me with a ringing cheer, and were 
at their places in an instant. White Wings began 
80 


THE NIGHT IS NOT SILENT 


to race through the water with all the power of the 
great engines which drove her. I heard a second 
signal gun fired ashore, but could attach no mean- 
ing to it. There was no other light upon our hori- 
zon than that of the red loom of flame which betrayed 
the gunboat’s course. She was our goal, and yet not 
she alone. The ocean had her secrets to reveal. I 
did not believe that she could hide them from me 
now. 

“We have the legs of her, Captain Larry.?” I 
asked him presently. 

“ Undoubtedly, sir.” 

“ And we will be up with her in half an hour F ” 

“ In a quarter if we hold this speed. Mr. Benson 
is showing off a bit, you see.” 

“ Captain Larry,” I said, “ they have arms aboard 
for certain, and I will risk the life of no man who 
came to serve me in ignorance of this. Let Mr. 
Benson be a little more discreet. We will keep out 
of gunshot, if you please.” 

“ I understand you, sir. And none too early.” 

He meant that we were already upon the point 
of being within gunshot of the pursued, and he rang 
down for “ half speed ” as he spoke. The order was 
not obeyed a minute too soon. A heavy gun thun- 
dered at us presently, and a shell fell impotently 
into the sea not a furlong from a starboard bow. 
The effect of this upon my crew was such as words 
81 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


can express with difficulty. It may be that the scene 
had been unreal to them until this time, a vision of 
which they could make little. But powder and shot ! 
The poorest intellect of them all understood that 
— while as for my genial Irishman, he ducked his 
head like an old woman who believes that a tile is 
falling. 

“ Ach, divil take them, Fabos! — am I wounded 
anywhere.? ” 

“ It would be somewhere about the pit of the 
stomach, Timothy.” 

“ But ’tis shell they’re firing.” 

“ I will complain about it, Timothy, when we go 
aboard.” 

He was very white — I forgave him for that. Like 
the others, he, too, had but little realized what the 
pursuit of this unknown ship might cost us and what 
pages it might write in the story of crime. The 
crashing sound of a great gun ringing out in the 
silence of the night brought the truth to his ears 
as no words could have done. 

“Faith ! ’tis little stomach I have for it at all ” 

“Would you turn back, Timothy.?” 

“ Not for a thousand sovereigns upon the cabin 
table.” 

The men heard him and gave a great cheer. It 
was answered distantly from the racing gunboat, 
echoed again by a low, sobbing sound as of winds, 
82 


THE NIGHT IS NOT SILENT 


given back to us by a murmur of the sea which 
already fretted as though at the far voice of tem- 
pest. A storm had crept upon us unseen. We had 
no eyes for anything but the black shape of the 
gunboat. 

“ There’s water for your soup, sir,” said the 
quartermaster they called Cain ; “ begging your 
pardon for the liberty, there’s more than a capful 
of wind coming.” 

We scarcely heard him. Captain Larry, more 
prudent, went down to his cabin to read the glass 
and returned with a grave face. 

“We shall have wind, sir, without a doubt,” he 
said to me. 

“ And what if we do, Larry ? ” 

“ Oh, the ship must tell us that.” 

“ I have no doubt of her. If it were only day- 
light, Larry ” 

“ Ah, sir, if our wishes were sovereigns, what 
fairy godmothers we should make!” 

“ They’ve doused their lights, Larry,” I went on ; 
“ the night is their luck. We may lose them yet, 
but we shall find them again if we cross the Atlantic 
to do it.” 

“ May I go with you if it’s twice round the world 
and back I ” 

Low voices cried “ Aye ” to that. The excite- 
ment of the night worked strangely upon the nerves 
8B 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


of men who, like all sailors, were awestruck in the 
presence of mystery. Yonder in the trough of a 
black ocean was the unknown ship we had set out 
to seek. The darkness hid her from us ; the sea rose 
rapidly; the wind had begun to blow half a gale. 
No longer could there be any thought of firing a 
gun or declaring an open attack upon us. Each 
ran for the open and for safety. Our searchlight 
showed us an empty waste of trembling waters and 
a black hull breasting the swell in cataracts of foam 
and spindrift. We doubted if the others would 
weather the night. Anxiety for our own safety 
became the dominant factor of our thoughts. 

Looking back to that unforgotten night, I have 
often wondered at the folly of calculations which 
had taken so little thought of Nature and allowed 
the temper of winds so small a place in all our reck- 
onings. I confess that such an arbiter as storm and 
tempest never once was in my mind when I planned 
to search the northern parts of Cape Colony for an 
unknown ship and to follow that ship to her haven 
in the open Atlantic. When the gale broke upon 
us, a swift cyclonic tempest characteristic of the 
southern ocean and her humor, I perceived my folly 
and could but laugh sardonically. So near had we 
been to that day of discovery of which I had 
dreamed ! And now we were but a shell of steel 
tossed impotently amidst a raging cataract of 
84 


THE NIGHT IS NOT SILENT 


sounds, swept by a hail of spray, or carried blindly 
at the back of winds. The ship we pursued appeared 
to have been lost altogether in the darkness. It be- 
came for any but a trained sailor almost a danger- 
ous thing to remain upon the deck of the White 
Wings. The crash of the seas upon our plates was 
as the tremor of thunder about our house. 

So for the hour we had failed. And who would 
dare to speak with confidence of the morrow 


85 


CHAPTER X 


THE VISION OP THE SHIP 

I SLEPT a little about midnight, being convinced 
that the night had written the last word of its story. 
The storm had not abated. A wild wind blew tem- 
pestuously from the southeast, and drove us before 
it as a leaf before a winter’s blast. Good ship as 
my yacht proved to be, she was like many turbined 
steamers, a wet boat in a gale and no friend to the 
landsman. We shipped heavy seas persistently, and 
drove our bull’s nose wildly into mountains of seeth- 
ing foam. Even the hardy crew could complain of 
her ; while my poor f riend Timothy McShanus im- 
plored me, for the love of God, to throw him over- 
board. 

“ Was it for this I left the home of me fathers? ” 
he asked me pitifully when I entered the cabin where 
he lay. “ Is this the land of milk and honey to which 
ye would take me? Stop the ship, I tell ye, and 
put me ashore. Let me die among the naygroes. 
Kill me with laudanum. Man, I’ll thank ye to have 
done it — I’ll call ye the best friend that Timothy 
McShanus ever had.” 


86 


THE VISION OF THE SHIP 


The poor fellow ! His groans were in my ears 
when I fell to sleep. His was the voice which re- 
proached me when I awoke. That would have been 
about three o’clock of the morning, I suppose. Dawn 
was breaking furtively in an ink-black sky. The 
swaying of a lamp in the gimbals, the swish of water 
against the cabin walls, told me that the gale had 
somewhat abated. I asked McShanus if he had waked 
me, and he answered that the captain had been down 
to call me to the deck. 

“ Put Timothy McShanus ashore and let the nay- 
groes devour him,” he said; and then, almost with 
tears in his eyes : “ Man, the last of me has been given 
up. I’m no more than a hollow drum for Sport to 
bate upon. Bury me where the shamrock grows. 
Say ’twas the up and downs that did for this same 
McShanus.” 

I spoke what cheer I could and went on deck as 
the captain had asked me. Abel, the quartermaster, 
stood at the wheel, and all our officers were with 
Larry upon the bridge. The sea still ran high, but 
the wind moderated. I perceived a sky that was 
black and thunderous to leeward, but clearing in the 
sun’s path. There were wonderful lights upon the 
raging waters, beams of gold and gray and green 
interweaved and superb in their weirdness. The 
waves ran high, but with less power in their assault ; 
and though a fine rain was falling, the measure of 

87 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


it became less with every minute that passed. These 
things I observed almost as I stepped from the com- 
panion hatch. But it was not until I stood side by 
side with Captain Larry upon the bridge that I knew 
why he had summoned me. 

He turned as I mounted the ladder, and helped 
me up with an icy cold hand. The little group there, 
I thought, seemed awed and afraid to speak. Larry 
himself merely pointed with his hand to a sailing 
ship sagging heavily in the swell perhaps half a mile 
from our port quarter. The glass which he put 
into my hand helped me but little, so dense was the 
spray upon its lens. I could at the first glance make 
little of the spectacle, save that the ship had four 
masts, was of unusual size, and seemed to be stand- 
ing well up to the gale, although her masts were bare. 
For the rest, she might have been any ship you like 
bound from Europe to “down under” and thence 
returning by Cape Horn. I told Larry as much, 
and then looked at the stranger again. Undoubt- 
edly there was something queer about her. Yet what 
it was, a landsman might well have been unable 
to say. 

“ Well, Larry, and what do you make of it now.? ” 
I asked the captain presently. Had I not known him 
too well his answer would have made me doubt his 
sanity. 

“ I think she is the ship you are seeking, sir.” 

88 


THE VISION OF THE SHIP 


I took up the glass without a word and focused 
it upon the deck of the sailing ship. Not a living 
soul could be discerned there. It might have been 
a derelict buffeted at hazard about the great Atlan- 
tic waste. And yet the vessel appeared to hold a 
steady course. Behind it my quick eye detected a 
wake of water such as is left by the propeller of a 
steamer. There were black objects at the bows 
which, in sober reason, might have been given the 
shape of machine guns. These things I was almost 
afraid to admit aloud. The idea that came to me 
had been purchased at a heavy price. I felt that 
I could share it with none. 

“ She is a sailing ship, Larry,” I said, “ and yet 
not a sailing ship.” 

“Far from it, sir. Yon’s no sailing ship.” 

“ You are thinking that she is fitted with auxiliary 
steam.” 

“ I am thinking that she has enough arms on 
board her to serve a cruiser of the line. Machine 
guns fore and aft and a ten-inch amidships. The 
masts are all blarney, sir, or I’m a Dutchman. 
That vessel’s heavily engined, and we may thank 
God we’re the fastest yacht afloat. If there were 
less sea running, they would have fired at us 
already.” 

“You mean it, Larry.'^” 

“ As true as there’s blue sky above, sir, yonder 

89 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


ship will sink us if we stand by. I’m telling you 
what I see with an old sailor’s eyes. Ten minutes 
ago we came on her suddenly out of the mists. She 
had fifty men on her poop then, and one dead man 
she put overboard. The sound of a gun they were 
firing called my attention to her. I saw a group of 
hands on the quarter deck and one shot down in cold 
blood. They put him overboard and then discovered 
me. What happens then. The men go out of sight 
like so many spiders to their webs. The ship is navi- 
gated, heaven knows how. She keeps by us and 
wants to know our business. I signal to them and 
no man answers. What shall I make of that, sir.? ” 

I answered him without a moment’s hesitation. 

“ You will make full speed ahead, Larry — now, 
this instant, let the yacht do what she can.” 

He rang the order down to the engineers, and 
White Wings began to race as a human thing over 
the great seas which swept upward toward the 
equator. The words were not spoken a moment too 
soon. Even as the bells rang out, a shell came hur- 
tling after us from the ten-inch gun Larry’s clever 
eyes had discerned upon the deck of the unknown 
vessel. It fell far ahead of us, a reckless, unmean- 
ing threat, and yet one which Fate ironically might 
have turned to our destruction. A second and a 
third followed it. We stood as though spellbound, 
the spindrift half blinding us, the monster seas 
90 


THE VISION OF THE SHIP 


surging upon our decks in cataracts of clear water. 
Would they hit us, or should we be lost in the 
curtain of the storm? I claim no better courage 
in that moment of the ordeal than the good fel- 
lows who closed about me were so ready to display. 
We raced from death together, and numbered the 
minutes which stood between us and our salva- 
tion. No thought or deed of our own could help 
us. The good yacht alone would answer for our 
lives. 

Now this strange pursuit lasted, I suppose, a full 
ten minutes. That it came to a premature end must 
be set down to the immense speed of which the White 
Wings was capable and the force of the gale which 
still raged about us. We had, indeed, now caught 
the tail end of the hurricane, the outer edge of the 
storm cycle ; and immediately it enveloped us, a dark- 
ness as of intenser night came down upon the waters. 
Turbulent waves, foaming and angry at their crests, 
deeply hollowed and black below, rolled northward 
in monster seas of towering grandeur, each threaten- 
ing us with the menace of disaster, but passing im- 
potently as we rose at its approach and were hurled 
onward to the depths. The sound of the rushing 
wind became terrible to hear. Unseen armies of the 
ether clashed and thundered above our heads. The 
rain of the spindrift cut our faces as with a whip. 
We held a course with difficulty, and must instantly 
7 91 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


have been lost to the view of those upc n the pur- 
suing ship. 

A full hour elapsed, I suppose, before the storm 
spent itself. Swiftly as it had come upon us, so 
swiftly it passed, leaving an aftermath of glorious 
sunshine and sweet, clear air and a sea deliciously 
green and fresh. Not a trace of any other ship 
could we now espy upon any horizon. We steamed 
the hither ocean alone, and the memory of the night 
was as that of a vision moribund, of sights and 
sounds of sleep to be mocked and forgotten at the 
dawn. So reason would have had it; but reason is 
rarely a sailor’s friend. If my men had made noth- 
ing of the unknown ships, of the shells they had fired, 
and the deeper mysteries they spoke of, none the less 
I knew that the fo’castle would resound presently 
with the talk of it, and that even my officers would 
recount that strange experience by many a fireside 
yet unbuilt. For myself, my duty had become plain 
to me. Until I had set foot upon the deck of the 
“ Diamond Ship ” (for this I called her henceforth), 
I had no place ashore, nor must think of my leisure 
at all. A man apart, I did not shrink from that 
lonely vigil. The mystery of it beckoned me; the 
excitement challenged my intellect to such a combat 
as the mind must love. I would go on to the end, 
and no man should turn me from my purpose. 


92 


THE VISION OF THE SHIP 


Now our course had been northward during these 
exciting hours, but as the day wore on, we set it 
full north-northwest. Captain Larry alone upon 
the ship knew my determination to sail from the 
African coast to Santa Maria in the Azores. I gave 
him no reason, nor did he ask one. He understood 
that my purpose was worthy of him and the yacht, 
and obeyed me unquestioningly. As for the men, 
they had been engaged for a service which they knew 
to have some measure of risk in it. A scale of pay, 
beyond anything expected from the master of a 
yacht, tempered their criticism and rewarded their 
fidelity. This I will say for them, that they were 
seamen, brave beyond the common, from the burly 
boatswain Balaam to the beef-faced cabin boy we 
had christened Nimbles. If they called my ship “ a 
police boat ” I did not resent the term. I think 
that they had come to have some affection and 
respect for me; and I would have wagered my 
fortune upon their loyalty. To such men it mat- 
tered little whether our head lay to the north or to 
the south. The mystery held their interest; they 
admitted that they had never known brighter days 
at sea. 

There remained my poor Timothy McShanus. 
Good soul, how his heart warmed to the sun- 
shine! And who would have hailed the Timothy of 
storm and of tempest when, upon the second night 
93 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


of our northward voyage, he dressed himself to dine 
with me in the exquisite little saloon my builders had 
designed for the White Wings. The sea had ebbed 
down by this time to the stillness of a great inland 
lake. The moonbeams upon the sleeping water shone 
with an ethereal radiance as of light that has been 
filtered in a mesh of mirrors. Scarce a breath of 
wind stirred the awnings of the deck or was caught 
by the gaping cowls. The yacht moved with that 
odd, gliding motion a turbine engine insures. We 
appeared to be running over the unctuous swell as 
a car upon well-laid rails. The sounds of the night 
were of steam hissing, and valves at a suction, 
and shafts swiftly revolving. The decks trembled 
at the voice of speed; the movement of the ves- 
sel was that of a living, breathing entity pitted 
against the majesty of spaces and conquering 
them. 

Be sure that Timothy McShanus came into dinner 
on such a night as this. He had found his sea-legs 
and his appetite ; and soup, fish, and bird disappeared 
like one o’clock. To watch him drink ’89 Bollinger 
from a Venetian tumbler might have inspired even 
the gods of thirst. Groomed to the last hair upon 
a timeworn scalp, Timothy would have served well 
for the model of an Englishman of the sixties as 
Paris used to see him. 

“ By the holy soul of Christopher Columbus ! ’tis 

94 


THE VISION OF THE SHIP 


a rare seaman I am,” he said as he went up to decks 
to take our coffee and cigars under the shelter of 
the awning. “ Ask me to point out the terrestrial 
paradise, and the yacht White Wings will I name to 
ye. Ah, don’t talk to me of yesterday ! ’Twas a bit 
of the touch of neuralgia I had, and keeping to me 
bed for security.” 

“ You wanted them to throw you overboard, 
Timothy.” 

“ The divil I did; and phwat for, if not to lighten 
the ship in the storm.? ’Tis a Jonah I would be and 
three days in the belly of the whale. Man, ’twould 
make a taytotaler of Bacchus himself.” 

He lighted a cigar of prodigious length, and fell 
for a while to practical observations upon the sea 
and sky and the ship which were of interest to none 
but himself. By and by they would appear in the 
columns of the Daily Shuffler. I begged of him to 
be less Dantesque and more practical ; and presently, 
becoming quite serious, he spoke of the Diamond 
Ship. 

“ Phwat the blazes does it all mean, Ean, me 
bhoy ? A ship in such a hurry that she fires a shot 
at ye for looking at her. Larry has told me the 
story and, by my soul, ’tis astonishing! When I 
return to London next month ” 

“ You are contemplating a return, then, Tim- 
othy?” 


95 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


“ Faith ! would ye have so much ganius buried in 
the dolldrums ? ” 

“We shall have to pick up a liner and put you 
aboard,” said I. 

He set his cup down with a bang and looked at 
me as though I had done him an injury. 

“ ’Tis to the British Isles ye are bound. Would 
ye deny it ? ” 

“ I do deny it, Timothy. We are bound to the 
Island of Santa Maria, in the Azores.” 

“ For phwat the divil ” 

But this masterly sentence he never finished. I 
could see that he was thinking deeply. Presently he 
settled himself in his chair and began to talk almost 
as one communing with himself. 

“ He takes me from London, me that is an orphan 
and has buried three wives. He puts me on the sea 
and shows me a wild man’s country. Ach, ’tis a won- 
derful man, me friend Fabos, and none like unto him ! 
As a lamb to the shearing do I thread in his foot- 
steps.” 

“ Rather an old sheep, Timothy, is it not ? ” 

He brushed the objection aside and, apostrophiz- 
ing the stars in that grandiose style he had learned 
from ancient melodrama, he exclaimed: 

“ Women eternal — the crimes that are committed 
in your name ! ” 

“ Do you mean to say ” 

96 


THE VISION OF THE SHIP 


“ I mean to say that ye are going to the Azores 
to see her.” 

“Joan Fordibras ” 

“No other. Joan Fordibras. The little divil of 
a shepherdess in the red dress. Ye are going to see 
her. Deny it not. Ye are risking much to see her 
— your duty which bought ye this ship, the knowl- 
edge ye have learned out of Africa, the story ye 
would tell to the British Government. Ye are losing 
these because of the shepherdess. I’ll deny it, Ean 
Fabos, when ye tell me it is not true.” 

“ Then deny it now, Timothy. I am going to the 
Azores because I believe that a house there can finish 
a story which the sea has begun. That is the whole 
truth of it. There are men afloat in a ship, Tim- 
othy, who hide some of the world’s greatest crim- 
inals and their plunder from the police of all cities. 
That is what I had supposed, and this voyage has 
gratified my supposition. I am going to the Azores 
to meet some of these men face to face.” 

“ And Joan Fordibras.? ” 

“ I hope from my heart that I shall never see her 
again.” 

“Ye hope nothing of the kind, man. ’Tis lurking 
in yer heart, the thought that ye will see and save 
her. I honor ye for it. I would not turn ye from 
your purpose for a fortune upon the table, poor 
divil of a man that I am. Go where ye will, Ean 
97 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


Fabos, there’s one that will go with ye — to the 
world’s end and back again and say that friendship 
sent him.” 

“ Then I am not to put you on a liner, Timothy ” 
“ May that same ship rot on verdurous reefs ! ” 

“ But you are risking your life, man ! ” 

He stood up and flicked the ash of his cigar into 
the sea. 

“ Yon is life,” he said, “ a little red light in the 
houses of our pleasure . . . and then the ashes on 
the waters. Ean, me bhoy, I go with you to Santa 
Maria!” 


We smoked awhile in silence. Presently he asked 
me how I came to think of the Azores at all and why 
I expected to find Joan Fordibras upon the island 
of Santa Maria. 

“ Did she speak of it at Dieppe by any chance ? ” 
he asked me. 

“Not a word,” said I. 

“General Fordibras would have let it slip.'^” 

“ Nothing of the kind.” 

“ Then, how the blazes ? ” 

“ Timothy,” I said, “ when we dined with Joan 
Fordibras at Dieppe, her chaperone, the elderly but 
engaging Miss Aston, met us with a letter in her 
hand.” 

“ Indade, and she did.” 

98 


THE VISION OF THE SHIP 


“ I saw the stamp upon it, Timothy.” 

He raised his eyes to heaven. 

“ God save all wicked men from Ean Fabos! ” he 
exclaimed. 

But I had only told him the truth; and but for 
that letter the lady carried, the high seas might yet 
embosom the secret of the Diamond Ship. 


99 


CHAPTER XI 


DEAD man’s raft 

So the desire of every man on board the White 
Wings became that of making the port of Santa 
Maria without the loss of a single day. When our 
prudent captain insisted that we must call at Porto 
Grande to coal, I believe that we regarded him as 
guilty of an offense against our earnestness. The 
fever of the quest had infected the very firemen in 
the stokehole. My men spent the sunny days peer- 
ing northward, as though the sea would disclose to 
them sights and sounds beyond all belief wonderful. 
They would have burned their beds if by such an act 
the course had been held. 

For my own part, while the zeal flattered me, there 
were hours of great despondency and, upon that, of 
silent doubt which no optimism of others could atone 
for. Reflect how ill matched were the links in the 
chain I had forged, and how little to be relied upon. 
A dead man upon a lonely shore; a woman wearing 
my stolen pearls in a London ballroom; the just be- 
lief that diamonds smuggled from the mines of South 
Africa were hidden upon the high seas ; the discovery 
100 


DEAD MAN’S RAFT 


of a great ship drifting like a phantom derelict in 
the waste of the South Atlantic Ocean ! This was 
the record. If I judged that the island of Santa 
Maria could add to it, the belief was pure supposi- 
tion. I went there as a man goes to an address which 
may help him in a quest. He may find the house 
empty or tenanted, hostile or friendly. But, in any 
case, he is wise to go and to answer the question for 
himself, for no other can take the full measure of 
that responsibility. 

We were two days at Porto Grande, and after 
that, sparing our engines as much as possible, despite 
our impatience, we set a course almost due north, and 
upon the third day we were within fifty miles of that 
island of our hopes, Santa Maria, in the Azores. I 
am not likely to forget either the occasion or the 
circumstance of it. The month was November; the 
hour, eleven o’clock in the forenoon watch; the morn- 
ing, that of Saturday, the nineteenth day of the 
month. Despite the season of the year, a warm sun 
shone down upon us almost with tropic heat. Cap- 
tain Larry was in his cabin, preparing for the mid- 
day observation ; the quartermaster, Cain, was at the 
wheel; Balaam, the boatswain, sat against the bul- 
warks amidships, knitting a scarf for his throat; my 
virile friend McShanus had gone below to “ soak in 
the cold water,” as he put it. My own occupation 
was that of reading for the third time that very 
101 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


beautiful book, Maeterlinck’s “Life of the Bee”; 
and I was wondering anew at the master knowledge 
of nature it displayed, when the second officer sent 
down word from the bridge that he would like to 
speak with me. Understanding that he did not wish 
to call the captain from the cabin, I went up imme- 
diately and discovered him not a little excited about 
a black object drifting with the wind at a distance, 
it may be, of a third of a mile from the ship. This 
he pointed out to me, and, handing me the glass, 
he asked me what I made of it. 

“It’s a raft, Andrews,” I said (for that was the 
second officer’s name) ; “ a raft, and there are men 
upon it.” 

“ Exactly as I thought, sir. It is a raft, and there 
are men upon it — but not living men, I fear. I have 
been watching it for a good ten minutes, and I am 
sure of what I say. Yon poor fellows will never sail 
a ship again.” 

I lifted the glass again and spied out the raft with 
a new interest. Clearly, it was not a safety raft such 
as is carried by most steamships nowadays ; indeed, 
it appeared to be a very rude structure made of 
rough planks lashed together at hazard. So far as 
I could count them, there were seven bodies made 
fast by ropes to this uncouth structure ; but the seas 
broke over them continually, and I waited some mo- 
ments before I observed that the clothes of the men 
102 


DEAD MAN’S RAFT 


were but rags, and that two of the poor fellows at 
least were almost entirely immersed and must have 
been drowned as we looked at them, if their deaths 
had not occurred long weeks ago. 

“ That’s a fearful thing, Andrews! ” I exclaimed, 
returning him the glass ; “ of course we shall go and 
see what we can do.” 

“ I have already altered the course two points, 
sir,” he said. 

“ Will you send a boat, do you think ” 

“ Ah, sir, that’s for you to say. If you think it 
wise that the men should know, remembering what a 
sailor is, then a boat by all means.” 

“ That is to be considered. If these poor fellows 
are really dead ” 

“ They have been dead many weeks, sir. What’s 
more, no shipwreck put them in that position.” 

“ Good God ! do you mean to say that they have 
been murdered ? ” 

“ Ah, that’s not for me to decide. Dr. Fabos. 
Look at the way they are lashed aboard there. Did 
their own hands do that.?* I’ll wager all I’ve got 
against it. They were tied up like that and then 
sent adrift. It’s plain enough without the glass, 
and the glass makes it sure.” 

Be it said that we were steaming some fifteen knots 
an hour by this time, and had come almost within 
a biscuit toss of the raft. The foreward lookout 
103 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


had been warned to say nothing, and Abel, the quar- 
termaster, took his cue from the officer of the watch. 
So it came about that we passed by the dreadful 
spectacle and remained, as a crew, almost ignorant 
of it. Indeed, knowing how easily seamen are de- 
pressed, I was thankful that it should have been so. 
The poor fellows upon the raft must have been dead 
for some weeks. Two of them were little more than 
human skeletons. The others were washed by every 
wave that broke over the hellish contrivance of ropes 
and planks to which they had been tied. I doubted 
no longer my officer’s supposition, horrible as it was 
to believe. Neither peril of the sea nor accident of 
destiny had sent those men to a death unnamable. 
I knew that they had been foully murdered, and that 
he who had thus dealt with them was the man I had 
set out to seek. 

“We cannot help them, Andrews ! ” I exclaimed ; 
“ let us keep our secret. The day may not be distant 
when the man shall share it with me. It would be 
something to have lived for — even to avenge that.” 

Hardly could he answer me. Terror of the voyage 
and, upon terror, a fierce delight, had rapidly become 
the guiding impulses of my crew. They would have 
sailed with me to the world’s end now and made no 
complaint. It remained for me, I said, not to betray 
them — even for the sake of a woman worthy .,of a 
man’s love. 


104 . 


CHAPTER XII 


SANTA MARIA 

You should know that Santa Maria is an island 
of the Azores group, standing at the extreme south- 
east of the archipelago, and being some thirty-eight 
miles in extent. Its harbor, if such it can be called, 
is at Villa do Porto, where there is a pleasant, if 
puny, town and a little colony of prosperous Por- 
tuguese merchants. Of anchorage for ships of con- 
siderable burden there is none worth speaking of. 
Those who ship goods to the island send them first 
to the neighboring port of St. Michaels, whence they 
are transferred in small boats to Villa do Porto. 
The land is spoken of as very fertile and rich in 
wheat-growing soil. So much I learned from the 
books before I visited it. That which my own eyes 
showed me I will here set down. 

Now, we had always intended to make Santa Maria 
after sundown, and it was quite dark when we espied 
the island’s lights, shining over the water like the 
lanterns of a fishing fleet. A kindly breeze blew at 
that time from the southwest, and little sea was 
105 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


running. As we drew near to the land, the silence 
of an unspoken curiosity fell upon the men. Some 
whisper of talk had gone about that the ‘‘ master ” 
would land at Villa do Porto, and that only the 
Japanese Okyada would accompany him. I knew 
that the good fellows were itching to speak out and 
to say that they believed me to be little less than a 
madman. So much had already been intimated by 
honest McShanus, and had been answered in the 
cabin below. 

“ Fabos, ye have more wits than the common, and 
I’ll believe no fool’s tale of ye,” he had said. “ Good 
God, if your own story is true, ye’d be safer in a 
lion’s den than in yon menagerie of thieves ! What’s 
to forbid the men accompanying ye? ’Tis my 
society that may be disagreeable to ye, perhaps. 
Faith, I want no man to insult me twice, nor will I 
stop in the yacht of the one who does so, though it 
were as big as Buckingham Palace and the Horse 
Guards thrown in ! ” 

I clapped him kindly on the shoulder, and told 
him not to be a fool. If I asked him to remain on 
board the White Wings, that was for my safety’s 
sake. 

“ Timothy,” I said, “ your coat is picturesque, 
but I refuse to tread upon the tail of it. Don’t be 
a choleric ass. And understand, man, that as long 
as the yacht stands out to sea and has my good 
106 


SANTA MARIA 


friends aboard, I am as safe as your maiden aunt 
in a four-wheeled cab. Let any harm come to me 
and you know what you are to do. This ship will 
carry you straight to Gibraltar, where you will de- 
liver my letters to Admiral Harris and act there- 
after as he shall tell you. I do not suppose that 
there will be the slightest necessity for anything of 
the kind. These people are always cowards. I have 
a strong card to play, and it will be played directly 
I go ashore. Be quite easy about me, Timothy. I 
am in no hurry to get out of this world, and if I 
thought that by going ashore yonder my departure 
would be hastened, not all the men in Europe would 
persuade me to the course.” 

“ And that’s to say nothing of the other sex,” he 
rejoined a little savagely. “ Now, don’t you know 
that Joan Fordibras is ashore there.?” 

“ I think it very unlikely, Timothy.” 

“ Ah, to blazes with the pretty face of her ! When 
shall we have the news of you ? ” 

“ Every day at sundown. Let the pinnace be at 
the landing. If not that, stand off for a signal. 
We will arrange it to-morrow night. You shall 
come ashore and dine with me when I know how the 
land lies. To-night I must go alone, old friend.” 

He assented with great reluctance. The men had 
already manned the lifeboat, and were waiting for 
We lay, perhaps, a full mile from the port, 

8 107 


me. 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


and had no pilot other than the Admiralty chart ; 
but the kindness of the night befriended us, and 
when the half of an hour had passed I stood safe 
and well in the streets of Villa da Porto, and my 
Japanese servant was at my side. This would have 
been about the hour of nine o’clock. Such life as 
the little place can show was then at its height, and, 
I confess, not without its charm. Had I been asked 
to describe the scene, I would have said that it re- 
minded me not a little of the Italian lakes. Shrubs 
and trees and flowers before the houses spoke in 
their turn of the tropics; the air was heavy with 
the perfume of a Southern garden; the atmosphere 
moist and penetrating, but always warm. Knowing 
absolutely nothing of the place, I turned to an 
officer of the customs for guidance. Where was the 
best hotel, and how did one reach it.?^ His answer 
astonished me beyond all expectation. 

“ The best hotel, senor,” he said, “ is the Villa 
San Jorge. Am I wrong in supposing that you 
are the Englishman for whom General Fordibras 
is waiting ” 

I concealed my amazement with what skill I could, 
and said that I was delighted to hear that General 
Fordibras had returned from Europe. If the inti- 
mation alarmed me, I would not admit as much to 
myself. These people, then, knew of my movements 
since I had quitted Dieppe.? They expected me to 
108 


SANTA MARIA 


visit Santa Maria ! And this was as much as to say 
that Joan Fordibras had been their instrument, 
though whether a willing or an unconscious instru- 
ment I could not yet determine. The night would 
show me — the night whose unknown perils I had 
resolved to confront, let the penalty be what it 
might. 

“ I will go up to the villa at once,” I said to the 
customs officer. “ If a carriage is to be had, let 
them get it ready without loss of time.” 

He replied that the Villa San Jorge lay five miles 
from the town, on the slope of the one inconsider- 
able mountain which is the pride of the island of 
Santa Maria. It would be necessary to ride, and 
the general had sent horses. He trusted that I 
would bring my servants, as they would be no em- 
barrassment to his household. The cordiality of 
the message, indeed, betrayed an anxiety which car- 
ried its own warning. I was expected at the house, 
and my host was in a hurry. Nothing could be more 
ominous. 

“ Does the general have many visitors from 
Europe.?^ ” I asked the officer. 

“ A great many sometimes,” was the reply ; “ but 
he is not always here, senor. There are months 
together when we do not see him — so much the 
worse for us.” 

“Ah, a benefactor to the town, I see!” 

109 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


“ A generous, princely gentleman, excellency — 
and his daughter quite a little queen amongst us.” 

“ Is she now at the Villa San Jorge? ” 

“ She arrived from Europe three days ago, ex- 
cellency.” 

I had nothing more to ask, and without the loss 
of a moment I delivered my dressing bag to the 
negro servant who approached me in the general’s 
name, and mounted the horse which a smart French 
groom led up to me. Okyada, my servant, being 
equally well cared for, we set off presently from the 
town, a little company, it may be, of a dozen men, 
and began to ride upward toward the mountains. 
A less suspicious man, one less given to remark every 
circumstance, however trivial, would have found the 
scene entirely delightful. The wild, tortuous moun- 
tain path, the clear sky above, the glittering rocks 
become peaks and domes of gold in the moonbeams, 
the waving torches carried by negroes, Portuguese, 
mulattoes, men of many nationalities who sang a 
haunting native chant as they went — here, truly, 
was the mask of romance, if not of its true circum- 
stance. But I had eyes rather for the men them- 
selves, for the arms they carried, the ugly knives, 
the revolvers that I detected in the holsters. Against 
what perils of that simple island life were these 
weapons intended? Should I say that these men 
were assassins, and that I had been decoyed to the 
110 


SANTA MARIA 


island to be the subject of a vulgar and grotesquely 
imprudent crime? I did not believe it. The anchor 
light of the White Wings, shining across the water, 
stood for my salvation. These men dare not murder 
me, I said. I could have laughed aloud at their dis- 
play of impotent force. 

I say that we followed a dangerous path up the 
hillside; but anon this opened out somewhat and 
crossed a modern bridge of iron above a consider- 
able chasm, the glistening walls of which the torches 
showed me forbiddingly. Having passed thereby, 
we found ourselves upon a plateau, the third of 
a mile across perhaps, and having for its back- 
ground the great peak of the mountain itself. How 
the land went upon the seaward side I could not make 
out in the darkness, but no sooner had we passed the 
gates, than I observed the lights of a house shining 
very pleasantly across the park; and from the cries 
my men raised, the hastening paces of the horses, 
and the ensuing hubbub, I knew that we had reached 
our destination, and that this was the home of Gen- 
eral Fordibras. Five minutes later the barking of 
hounds, the sudden flash of light from an open door, 
and a figure in the shadows gave us welcome to the 
Villa San Jorge. I dismounted from my horse and 
found myself face to face, not with Hubert Fordi- 
bras, but with his daughter, Joan. 

She was prettily dressed in a young girl’s gown 

111 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


of white, but one that evidently had been built in 
Paris. I observed that she wore no jewelry, and 
that her manner was as natural and simple as I might 
have hoped it to be. A little shyly, she told me that 
her father had been called to the neighboring island 
of St. Michael’s and might not return for three days. 

“ And isn’t it just awful,” she said, the American 
phrase coming prettily enough from her young lips, 
“ isn’t it awful to think that I shall have to enter- 
tain you all that long while ! ” 

I answered her that if my visit were an embarrass- 
ment I could return to the yacht immediately — that 
I had come to see her father, and that my time was 
my own. To all of which she replied with one of 
those expressive and girlish gestures which had first 
attracted me toward her — just an imperceptible 
shrug of the shoulders and a pretty pout of protest. 

“ Why, if you would like to go back. Dr. 
Fabos ! ” 

“ Don’t say so. I am only thinking of your 
troubles.” 

“ Then you do want to stay ? ” 

“ Frankly, I want to stay.” 

“ Then come right in. And pity our poor cook, 
who expected you an hour ago.” 

“ Really, you should not ” 

“ What ! starve a man who has come all the way 
f rom Europe to see us ? ” 

112 


SANTA MARIA 


“ Well, I’ll confess to a mountain appetite, then. 
You can tell the general how obedient you found 
me.” 

“ You shall tell him for yourself. Oh, don’t think 
you are going away from him in a hurry! People 
never do who come to the Villa San Jorge. They 
stop weeks and months. It’s just like heaven, you 
know — if you know what heaven is like. We have 
given you ‘ Bluebeard’s room,’ because of the cup- 
board in it — ^but you may look inside if you like. 
Let General Washington show you the way up this 
minute.” 

“ And my servant ? I hope he won’t give any 
trouble. He’s a Jap, and he lives on rice puddings. 
If he is in your way, don’t hesitate to say so.” 

“ How could he be in the way ? Besides, my 
father quite expected him.” 

“ He said so ? ” 

“Yes; and an Irish gentleman — what was his 
name.?* The one who made love to Miss Aston at 
Dieppe. She’s upstairs now, reading about the 
kings of Ireland. The Irish gentleman told her of 
the book. Why, Dr. Fabos, as if you didn’t know! 
— of course he made love to her.” 

“ In an Irish way, I hope. Perhaps we’ll have him 
ashore to-morrow, though I fear he will be a dis- 
appointment. His love-making consists largely of 
quotations from his stories in Pretty Bits. I have 
113 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


heard him so often. There are at least two hundred 
women in the world who are the only women he has 
ever loved. Put not your faith in Timothy — at 
least, beg of Miss Aston to remember that he comes 
of a chivalrous but susceptible race.” 

“ How dare I intrude upon her dream of happi- 
ness.? She has already furnished the drawing-room, 
in imagination, you know.” 

“ Then let her dream that Timothy has upset the 
lamp and that the house is on fire.” 

We laughed together at the absurdity of it, and 
then I followed a huge mulatto whom she called 
General Washington upstairs to a room they had 
prepared for me. The house, as much as I could 
see of it, appeared to be a bungalow of consider- 
able size, but a bungalow which emerged at its rear 
into a more substantial building carrying an upper 
story and many bedrooms there. My own room was 
furnished in excellent taste, but without display. 
The American fashion of a bathroom adjoining the 
bedroom had been followed; and not a bathroom 
alone, but a delightful little sitting-room, completed 
a luxurious suite. Particularly did I admire the 
dainty painting of the walls (little paper being used 
at Santa Maria by reason of the damp), the old 
English chintz curtains, and the provision of books 
both in the sitting and bedroom. Very welcome also 
were the many portable electric lamps cunningly 
114 


SANTA MARIA 


placed by the bedside and upon dainty Louis XV 
tables ; while the fire reminded me of an English 
country house and of the comfort looked for there. 

In such a pretty bedroom, I made a hasty change ; 
and, hearing musical bells below announcing that 
supper was ready, I returned to the hall, where Joan 
Fordibras awaited me. The dining room of the Villa 
San Jorge had the modern characteristics which dis- 
tinguished the upper chambers. There were well- 
known pictures here, and old Sheffield plate upon the 
buffet. The chairs were American, and a little out 
of harmony with some fine Spanish mahogany and 
a heavy Persian carpet over the parquet. This jar- 
ring note, however, did not detract from the general 
air of comfort pervading the apartment, nor from 
its appearance of being the daily living room of a 
homely family. Indeed, had one chosen to name the 
straight-backed Miss Aston for its mistress and Joan 
Fordibras for the daughter of the house, then the 
delusion was complete and to be welcomed. None the 
less could I tell myself that it might harbor at that 
very moment some of the greatest villains that 
Europe had known, and that the morrow might 
report my own conversation to them. Never for 
one instant could I put this thought from me. It 
went with me from the hall to the table; it embar- 
rassed me while I discussed New York and Paris and 
Vienna with the “ learned woman ” basely called the 
115 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


chaperone ; it touched the shoulder of my mind when 
Joan Fordibras’s eyes — those Eastern, languorous 
eyes — were turned upon me and her child’s voice 
whispered some nonsense in my ears. A house of 
criminals, and the greatest receiver in the story of 
crime for one of its masters! So I believed them. 
So, to-day, I know that the truth stood. 

Our talk at the table was altogether of frivolous 
things. Not by so much as a look did Mistress Joan 
recall to me the conversation, intimate and out- 
spoken, which had passed between us at Dieppe. 
I might have been the veriest dreamer to remember 
it all — the half expressed plea for pity on her part ; 
the doubt upon mine. How could one believe it of 
this little coquette — prattling of the theaters of 
Paris, the shops of Vienna, or the famous Sherry s 
of New York. Had we been a supper party at the 
Savoy, the occasion could not have been celebrated 
with greater levity. Of the history of these people I 
learned absolutely nothing at all that I did not know 
already. They had a house on the banks of the 
Hudson River, an apartment in Paris — in London 
they always stayed at hotels. General Fordibras 
was devoted to his yacht. Miss Aston adored Jane 
Austen, and considered the Imperial Theater to be 
the Mecca of all good American ladies. Nonsense, 
I say, and chiefly immaterial nonsense. But two 
facts came to me which I cared to make note of. The 
116 


SANTA MARIA 


first of them dealt with Joan Fordibras’s departure 
from Dieppe and her arrival at Santa Maria. 

‘‘ My, I was cross ! ” she exclaimed apropos ; “ just 
to think that one might have gone on to Aix ! ” 

“ Then you left Dieppe in a hurry ? ” I com- 
mented. 

She replied quite unsuspectingly. 

“ They shot us into the yacht like an expressed 
trunk. I was in such a temper that I tore my lace 
dress all to pieces on the something or other. Miss 
Aston, she looked daggers. I don’t know just how 
daggers look, but she looked them. The captain 
said he wouldn’t have to blow the siren if she would 
only speak up ” 

“ My dear Joan, whatever are you saying.? Cap- 
tain Doubleday would never so forget himself. He 
sent roses to my cabin directly I went on board.” 

“ Because he wanted you to help navigate the ship, 
cousin. He said you were a born seaman. Now, 
when I go back to London ” 

“Are you returning this winter.?” I asked with 
as much indifference as I could command. 

She shook her head sadly. 

“We never know where my father is going. It’s 
always rush and hurry, except when we are here at 
Santa Maria. And there’s no one but the parish 
priest to flirt with. I tried so hard when we first 
came here — such a funny little yellow man, just like 
117 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


a monkey. My heart was half broken when Cousin 
Emma cut me out.” 

Cousin Emma ” — by whom she indicated the 
masculine Miss Aston — protested loudly for the 
second time, and again the talk reverted to Europe. 
I, however, had two facts which I entered in my note- 
book directly I went upstairs. And this is the entry 
that I made: 

(1) Joan Fordibras left Dieppe at a moment’s 
notice. Ergo, her departure was the direct issue of 
my own. 

(2) The general’s yacht put out to sea, but re- 
turned when I had left. Ergo, his was not the yacht 
which I had followed to South Africa. 

These facts, I say, were entered in my book when 
I had said “ Good night ” to Joan and left her at 
the stair’s foot — a merry, childish figure, with mis- 
chief in her eyes and good will toward me in her 
words. Whatever purpose had been in the general’s 
mind when he brought her to Santa Maria, she, I 
was convinced, knew nothing of it. To me, however, 
the story was as clear as though it had been written 
in a master book. 

They hope that I will fall in love with her and 
become one of them, I said. Such an idea was 
worthy of the men and their undertaking. I fore- 
saw ripe fruit of it, and chiefiy my own salvation and 
safety for some days at least. 

118 


SANTA MARIA 


Willingly would I play a lover’s part if need be. 
It should not be difficult, I said, to call Joan Fordi- 
bras “ my own,” or to tell her those eternal stories 
of love and homage of which no woman has yet 
grown weary. 



119 


CHAPTER XIII 


THE CAVE IN THE MOUNTAIN 

Joan had spoken of a “ Bluebeard’s ” cupboard 
in my bedroom. This I opened the moment I went 
up to bed. It stood against the outer wall of the 
room, and plainly led to some apartment or gallery 
above. The lock of the inner door, I perceived, had 
a rude contrivance of wires attached to it. A child 
would have read it for an ancient alarm set there to 
ring a bell if the door were opened. I laughed at 
his simplicity, and said that, after all. General 
Fordibras could not be a very formidable antago- 
nist. He wished to see how far my curiosity would 
carry me in his house, and here was an infantile 
device to discover me. I took a second glance at 
it, and dismissed it from my mind. 

I had gone up to bed at twelve o’clock, I suppose, 
and it was now nearly half an hour after midnight. 
A good fire of logs still burned in the grate ; a hand 
lamp with a crimson shade stood near by my bed. 
Setting this so that I could cast a shadow out upon 
the veranda, I made those brisk movements which 
120 


CAVE IN THE MOUNTAIN 


a person watching without might have interpreted 
as the act of undressing, and then, extinguishing 
the light and screening the fire, I listened for the 
footsteps of my servant, Okyada. No cat could 
tread as softly as he; no beast upon a trail could 
step with more cunning than this soft-eyed, devoted, 
priceless fellow. I had told him to come to me at a 
quarter to one, and the hands of the watch were still 
upon the figures when the door opened inch by inch 
and he appeared, a specter, almost invisible, of a pair 
of glistening eyes, of white, laughing teeth, Okyada, 
the invincible, the incorruptible. 

“What news, Okyada.?” 

He whispered his answer, every word sounding as 
clearly in my ears as the notes of a bell across a 
drowsy river. 

“ There is that which you should know, master. 
He isr here, in this house. I have seen him sleeping. 
Let us go together — the white foot upon the wool. 
It would be dangerous to sleep, master.” 

I thought that his manner was curiously anxious, 
for here was a servant who feared nothing under 
heaven. To have questioned him further when I 
could ascertain the facts for myself, would have been 
ridiculous; and merely looking to my pistols, and 
drawing a heavy pair of felt slippers over my boots, 
I followed him from the room. 

“ Straight down the stairs, master,” he said. 

121 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


“ They are watching the corridors. One will not 
watch again to-night — he sleeps the good sleep. Let 
us pass where he should have been.” 

I understood that he had dealt with one of the 
sentries as only a son of Hiroshima could ; and nod- 
ding in answer, I followed him down the stairs, and 
so to the dining room I had so recently quitted. 
The apartment was almost as I had left it an hour 
ago ; plates and glasses were still upon the table ; 
the embers of a fire reddened upon the open hearth. 
I observed, however, that a shutter of a window 
giving upon the veranda had been opened to the 
extent of a hand’s breadth, and by this window it was 
plain that my servant meant to pass out. No sooner 
had we done so than he dexterously closed the shutter 
behind him by the aid of a cord and a little beeswax ; 
and having left all to his satisfaction, he beckoned 
me onward, and began to tread a wide lawn of grass 
and, after that, a pine wood so thickly planted that 
an artificial maze could not have been more per- 
plexing. 

Now it came to me that the house itself did not 
contain the man I was seeking nor the sights which 
Okyada had to show me. This woodland path led 
to the wall of the mountain, to the foot of that 
high peak visible to every ship that sails by Santa 
Maria. Here, apparently, the track terminated. 
Okyada, crouching like a panther, bade me imitate 
122 


CAVE IN THE MOUNTAIN 


him as we drew near to the rock ; and approaching 
it with infinite caution, he raised his hand again and 
showed me, at the cliff’s foot, the dead body of the 
sentinel who had watched the place, I made sure, not 
a full hour ago. 

“ We met upon the ladder, master,” said my serv- 
ant, unmoved ; “ I could not go by. He fell, master 
— he fell from up yonder where you see the fires. 
His friends are there; we are going to them.” 

I shuddered at the spectacle — perhaps was un- 
nerved by it. This instant brought home to me as 
nothing else had done the nature of the quest I had 
embarked upon and the price which it might be 
necessary to pay for success. What were life or 
death to this criminal company my imagination had 
placed upon the high seas and on such shores as 
this ! They would kill me, if my death could con- 
tribute to their safety, as readily as a man crushes 
a fly that settles by his hand. All my closest-reasoned 
schemes might not avail against such a sudden out- 
break of fury and vengeance as discovery might 
bring upon me. This I had been a fool not to 
remember, and it came to me in all its black naked- 
ness as I stood at the foot of the precipice and per- 
ceived that Okyada would have me ascend. The ven- 
ture was as desperate as any a man could embark 
upon. I know not to this day why I obeyed my 
servant. 


9 


123 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 

Let me make the situation clear. The path 
through the wood had carried us to a precipice of 
the mountain, black and stern and forbidding. 
Against this, a frail iron ladder had been raised and 
hooked to the rock by the ordinary clamps which 
steeplejacks employ. How far this ladder had been 
reared I could not clearly see. Its threadlike shell 
disappeared and was quickly lost in the shadows of 
the heights, while far above, beyond a space of 
blackness, a glow of warm light radiated from time 
to time from some orifice of the rock, and spoke both 
of human presence and human activities. That the 
ladder had been closely watched, Okyada had already 
told me. Did I need a further witness, the dead body 
at the cliff’s foot must have answered for my serv- 
ant’s veracity. Somewhere in that tremendous 
haze of light and shadow, the two men had met upon 
a foothold terrible to contemplate; their arms had 
been locked together. They had uttered no cries, 
but silently, grimly fighting, they had decided the 
issue . . . and one had fallen horribly to the rocks 
below. This man’s absence must presently be dis- 
covered. How if discovery came while we were still 
upon the ladder from which he had been hurled.? 
Such a thought, I reflected, was the refuge of a 
coward. I would consider it no more; and bidding 
Okyada lead, I hastened to follow him to the un- 
known. 

124 * 


CAVE IN THE MOUNTAIN 

We mounted swiftly, the felt upon our shoes 
deadening all sounds. I am an old Alpine climber, 
and the height had no terrors for me. Under other 
circumstances the fresh bracing air above the wood, 
the superb panorama of land and sea, would have 
delighted me. Down yonder to the left lay Villa da 
Porto. The anchor light of my own yacht shone 
brightly across the still sea, as though telling me 
that my friends were near. The Villa San Jorge 
itself was just a black shape below us, lightless and 
apparently deserted. I say apparently,” for a 
second glance at it showed me, as moving shadows 
upon a moonlit path, the figures of the sentinels who 
had been posted at its doors. These, had their eyes 
been prepared, must certainly have discovered us. 
It may be that they named us for the guardian of 
the ladder itself ; it may be that they held their peace 
deliberately. That fact does not concern me. I am 
but able to record the circumstance that, after 
weary climbing, we reached a gallery of the rock 
and stood together, master and servant, upon a rude 
bridle path, thirty inches wide, perhaps, and without 
defense against the terrible precipice it bordered. 
Here, as in the wood, Okyada crept apace, but with 
infinite caution, following the path round the moun- 
tain for nearly a quarter of a mile, and so bringing 
me without warning to an open plateau with a great 
orifice, in shape no more or less than the entrance 
1^5 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


to a cave within the mountain itself. I perceived 
that we had come to our journey’s end; and falling 
prone at a signal from my guide, I lay without word 
or movement for many minutes together. 

Now, there were two men keeping guard at the 
entrance to the cave, and we lay, perhaps, within 
fifty yards of them. The light by which we saw the 
men was that which escaped from the orifice itself, 
a fierce glowing red light, shining at intervals as 
though a furnace door had been opened and imme- 
diately shut again. The effect of this I found weird 
and menacing beyond all experience — for while at 
one moment the darkness of ultimate night hid all 
things from our view, at the next the figures were 
outstanding in a fiery aureole, as clearly silhouetted 
in crimson as though incarnadined in a shadowgraph. 
To these strange sights the accompaniment of odd 
sounds was added — the blast as of wind from a 
mighty bellows, the clanging of hammers upon anvils 
of steel, the low, humming voices of men who sang, 
bare-armed, as they worked. In my own country, 
upon another scene, a listener would have said they 
were honest smiths pursuing their calling while other 
men slept. I knew too much of the truth to permit 
myself any such delusion. These men worked gold, 
I said. There could be no other employment for 
them. 

So with me shall my friends watch upon the moun- 

126 


CAVE IN THE MOUNTAIN 

tain and share both the surprise and the wonder of 
this surpassing discovery. My own feelings are 
scarcely to be declared. The night promised to 
justify me beyond all hope; and yet, until I could 
witness the thing for myself, justification lay as far 
off as ever. Indeed, our position was perilous beyond 
all words to tell. There, not fifty paces from us, 
the sentries lounged in talk, revolvers in their belts 
and rifles about their shoulders. A sigh might have 
betrayed us. We did not dare to change a mono- 
syllable or lift a hand. Cramped almost beyond 
endurance, I myself would have withdrawn and gone 
down to the house again but for the immovable 
Okyada, who lay as a stone upon the path, and by 
his very stillness betrayed some subtler purpose. 
To him it had occurred that the sentries would go 
upon their patrol presently. I knew that it might 
be so — had thought of it myself ; but a full twenty 
minutes passed before they gave us a sign, and then 
hardly the sign I looked for. One of them, rousing 
himself lazily, entered the cave and became lost to 
our view. The other, slinging his rifle about his 
shoulders, came deliberately toward us, stoutly, fur- 
tively, for all the world as though he were fully aware 
of our presence and about to make it known. This, 
be it known, was but an idea of my awakened imagi- 
nation. Whatever had been designed against us by 
the master of the ViUa San Jorge, an open assault 
127 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


upon the mountain-side certainly had not been con- 
templated. The watchman must, in plain truth, 
have been about to visit the ladder’s head to ascer- 
tain if all were well with his comrade there. Such 
a journey he did not complete. The Jap sprang 
upon him suddenly at the very moment he threat- 
ened almost to tread upon us, and he fell, without a 
single word, at my feet, as though stricken by some 
fell disease which forbade him to move a limb or 
utter a single cry. 

Okyada had caught him with one arm about his 
throat and a clever hand behind his knees. As he 
lay prone upon the rock he was gagged and bound 
with a speed and dexterity I have never seen imitated. 
Fear, it may be, was my servant’s ally. The 
wretched man’s eyes seemed to start almost out of 
his head when he found himself thus outwitted, an 
arm of iron choking him and lithe limbs of incom- 
parable strength roping his body as with bonds of 
steel. Certainly he made no visible effort of resist- 
ance, rather consenting to his predicament than 
fighting against it ; and no sooner was the last knot 
of the cord tied than Okyada sprang up and pointed 
dramatically to the open door no longer watched by 
sentries. To gain this was the work of a moment. 
I drew my revolver and, crossing the open space, 
looked down deliberately into the pit. The story of 
the Villa San Jorge lay at my feet. General 
128 


CAVE IN THE MOUNTAIN 


Fordibras, I said, had no longer a secret to con- 
ceal from me. 

I will not dwell upon those emotions of exultation, 
perhaps of vanity, which came to me in that amazing 
moment. All that I had sacrificed to this dangerous 
quest, the perils encountered and still awaiting me — 
what were they when measured in the balance of this 
instant revelation, this swift and glowing vision with 
which the night rewarded me ! I knew not the price 
I would have paid for the knowledge thus instantly 
come to my possession. Something akin to a trance 
of reflection fell upon me. I watched the scene 
almost as a man intoxicated by the very atmosphere 
of it. A sense of time and place and personality was 
lost to me. The great book of the unknown had 
been opened before me and I read on, entranced. 
This, I say, was the personal note of it. Let me 
put it aside to speak more intimately of reality and 
of that to which reality conducted me. 

Now the cave of the mountain, I judge, had a 
depth of some third of a mile. It was in aspect not 
unlike what one might have imagined a mighty sub- 
terranean cathedral to have been. Of vast height, the 
limestone vault above showed me stalactites of such 
surpassing size and infinite variety that they sur- 
passed all ideas I had conceived of Nature and her 
wonders. Depending in a thousand forms, here as 
foliated corbels, there as vaulting shafts whose walls 
129 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


had fallen and left them standing, now as quat re- 
foils and cusps, sometimes seeming to suggest mon- 
ster gargoyles, the beauty, the number, and the 
magnificence of them could scarcely have been sur- 
passed by any wonders of limestone in all the world. 
That there were but few corresponding stalagmites 
rising up from the rocky ground must be set down 
to the use made of this vast chamber and the work 
then being undertaken in it. No fewer than nine 
furnaces I counted at a first glance; glowing fur- 
naces through whose doors the dazzling whiteness 
of unspeakable fires blinded the eyes and illuminated 
the scene as though by unearthly lanterns. And 
there were men everywhere, half-naked men, leather- 
aproned, and shining as though water had been 
poured upon their bodies. These fascinated me as 
no mere natural beauty of the scene or the surprise 
of it had done. They were the servants of the men 
to whom I had thrown down the glove so recklessly. 
They were the servants of those who, armed and un- 
known, sailed the high seas in their flight from cities 
and from justice. This much I had known from the 
first. Their numbers remained to astonish me be- 
yond all measure. 

And of what nature was their task at the fur- 
naces ? I had assumed at the first thought that they 
were workers in precious metals, in the gold and 
silver which the cleverest thieves of Europe shipped 
130 


CAVE IN THE MOUNTAIN 


here to their hand. Not a little to my astonishment, 
the facts did not at the moment bear out my sup- 
position. Much of the work seemed shipwright’s 
business, or such casting as might be done at any 
Sheffield blast furnace. Forging there was, and 
shaping and planing — not a sign of any criminal 
occupation, or one that would bear witness against 
them. The circumstance, however, did not deceive 
me. It fitted perfectly into the plan I had prepared 
against my coming to Santa Maria and General 
Fordibras’s discovery of my journey. Of course 
these men would not be working precious metals — 
not, at least, to-night. This I had said when recol- 
lection of my own situation came back to me sud- 
denly; and realizing the folly of further espionage, 
I turned about to find Okyada and quit the spot. 

Then I discovered that my servant had left the 
plateau, and that I stood face to face with the ugliest 
and most revolting figure of a Jew it has ever been 
my misfortune to look upon. 


131 


CHAPTER XIV 


VAL IMROTH 

Imagine a man some five feet six in height, weak 
and tottering upon crazy knees, and walking labori- 
ously by the aid of a stick. A deep green shade 
habitually covered protruding and bloodshot eyes, 
but for the nonce it had been lifted upon a 
cone-shaped forehead, the skin of which bore the 
scars of ancient wounds and more than one jagged 
cut. A goat’s beard, long and unkempt and shaggy, 
depended from a chin as sharp as a wedge; the nose 
was prominent, but not without a suggestion of 
power ; the hands were old and tremulous, but quiver- 
ing still with the desire of life. So much a glare 
of the furnace’s light showed me at a glance. When 
it died down I was left alone in the darkness with this 
revolting figure, and had but the dread suggestion 
of its presence for my companion. 

“Dr. Fabos, of London! Is it not Dr. Fabos.? 
I am an old man, and my eyes do not help me as once 
they did. But I think it is Dr. Fabos ! ” 

I turned upon him and declared myself, since 

IS2 


VAL IMROTH 

any other course would have made me out afraid 
of him. 

‘‘ I am Dr. Fabos — ^yes, that is so. And you, I 
think, are the Polish Jew they call Val Imroth.? ” 

He laughed, a horrible, dry, throaty laugh, and 
drew a little nearer to me. 

“ I expected you before — three days ago,” he 
said, just in the tone of a cat purring; “ you made 
a very slow passage, doctor, a very slow passage 
indeed. All is well that ends well, however. Here 
you are at Santa Maria, and there is your yacht 
down yonder. Let me welcome you to the villa.” 

So he stood, fawning before me, his voice almost 
a whisper in my ear. What to make of it, I knew 
not at all. Harry Avenhill, the young thief I cap- 
tured at Newmarket, had spoken of this dread figure, 
but always in connection with Paris, or Vienna, or 
Rome. Yet here he was at Santa Maria, his very 
presence tainting the air as with a chill breath of 
menace and of death. My own rashness in coming 
to the island never appeared so utterly to be con- 
demned, so entirely without excuse. This fearful 
old man might be deaf to every argument I had 
to offer. There was no crime in all the story he 
had not committed or would not commit. With 
General Fordibras I could have dealt . . . but with 
him ! 

“ Yes,” I said quite calmly, “ that is my yacht. 

133 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


She will start for Gibraltar to-morrow if I do not 
return to her. It will depend upon my friend, Gen- 
eral Fordibras.” 

I said it with what composure I could command 
— for this was all my defense. His reply was a low 
laugh and a bony finger which touched my hand as 
with a die of ice. 

“ It is a dangerous passage to Gibraltar, Dr. 
Fabos ; do not dwell too much upon it. There are 
ships which never see the shore again. Yours might 
be one of them.” 

“ Unherufen. The German language is your own. 
If my boat does not return to England, and after 
that to London, in that case, Herr Imroth, you may 
have many ships at Santa Maria, and they will fly the 
white ensign. Be good enough to credit me with 
some small share of prudence. I should scarcely 
stand here as I do, had I not measured the danger 
— and provided against it. You were not then in 
my calculations. Believe me, they are not to be 
destroyed even by your presence.” 

Now he listened to this with much interest and 
evident patience; and I perceived instantly that it 
had not failed to make an impression upon him. To 
be frank, I feared nothing from design, but only 
from accident, and although I had him covered by 
my revolver, I never once came near to touching the 
trigger of it. So mutually in accord, indeed, were 
134 


VAL IMROTH 


our thoughts that when next he spoke he might have 
been giving tongue to my apprehensions. 

“ A clever man, who relies upon the accident of 
papers. My dear friend, would all the books in our 
great library in Rome save you from yonder men if 
I raised my voice to call them.? Come, Dr. Fabos, 
you are either a fool or a hero. You hunt me, 
Valentine Imroth, whom the police of twenty cities 
have hunted in vain. You visit us as a schoolboy 
might have done, and yet you are as well acquainted 
with your responsibilities as I am. What shall I 
say of you.? What do you say of yourself when you 
ask the question: ‘Will these men let me go free.? 
Will they permit my yacht to make Europe again .? ’ 
Allow me to answer that, and in my turn I will tell 
you why you stand here safe beside me when at a 
word of mine, at a nod, one of these white doors 
would open and you would be but a little whiff of 
ashes before a man could number ten. No, my 
friend, I do not understand you. Some day I shall 
do so — and then God help you ! ” 

It was wonderful to hear how little there was 
either of vain boasting or of melodramatic threat 
in this strange confession. The revolting, hawk- 
eyed Jew put his cards upon the table just as 
frankly as any simpering miss might have done. I 
perplexed him, therefore he let me live. My own 
schemes were so many childish imaginings to be 
135 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


derided. The yacht, Europe, the sealed papers 
which would tell my story when they were opened — 
he thought that he might mock them as a man 
mocks an enemy who has lost his arms by the way. 
In this, however, I perceived that I must now un- 
deceive him. The time had come to play my own 
cards — the secret cards which not even his wit had 
brought into our reckoning. 

“ Herr Imroth,” I said quietly, “ whether you 
understand me or no is the smallest concern to me. 
Why I came to Santa Maria you will know in due 
season. Meanwhile, I have a little information for 
your ear and for your ear alone. There is in Paris, 
Rue Gloire de Marie, No. 20, a young woman of the 
name of ” 

I paused, for the light, shining anew, showed me 
upon the old man’s face something I would have paid 
half my fortune to see there. Fear, and not fear 
alone, dread, and yet something more than dread — 
human love, inhuman passion, the evil spirit of all 
malice, all desire, all hate. How these emotions fired 
those limpid eyes, drew down the mouth in passion, 
set the feeble limbs trembling! And the cry that 
escaped his lips — the shriek of terror almost! how 
it resounded in the silence of the night, the cry of 
a wolf mourning a cub, of a jackal robbed of a prey ! 
never have my ears heard such sounds or my soul 
revolted before such animal ferocity. 

136 


VAL IMROTH 


“ Devil ! ” he cried, “ devil of hell ! what have you 
to do with her ? ” 

I clutched his arm and drew him down toward me. 

“ Life for a life. Shall she know the truth of 
this old man’s story, the old man who goes to her 
as a husband clad in benevolence and well-doing? 
Shall she know the truth, or shall my f riends in Paris 
keep silence? Answer, old man, or, by God, they 
shall tell it to her to-morrow ! ” 

He did not utter a single word. Passion or fear 
has mastered him utterly, and robbed him of both 
speech and action. And herein the danger lay; for 
no sooner had I spoken than the light of a lantern 
shone full upon my face, while deep down, as it 
were, in the very bowels of the earth, an alarm bell 
was ringing. 

The unknown were coming up out of the pit. 
And the man who could have saved me from them 
had been struck dumb as though by a judgment 
of God. 


137 


CHAPTER XV 


THE ALARM 

The Jew seemed unable to utter a sound; but 
the men who came up out of the cave made the night 
resound with their horrid cries. 

What happened to me in that instant of fierce 
turmoil, of loud alarm, and coward’s frenzy, I 
have no clear recollection whatever. It may have 
been that one of the men struck me and that I fell 
— more possibly they dragged me down headlong 
into the pit, and the press of them alone saved me 
from seriojLis hurt. The truth of it is immaterial — 
there I was presently, with a hundred of them about 
me, men of all nations, their limbs dripping with 
sweat, their eyes ablaze with desire of my life, their 
purpose to kill me as unmistakable as the means 
whereby they would have contrived it. 

It has been my endeavor in this narrative to avoid 
as far as may be those confessions of purely personal 
emotions which are incidental to all human endeavor. 
My own hopes and fears and disappointments are 
of small concern to the world, nor would I trespass 
138 


THE ALARM 


upon the patience of others with their recital. If 
I break through this resolution at this moment, it 
is because I would avoid the accusation of a vaunted 
superiority above my fellows in those attributes of 
courage which mankind never fails to admire. The 
men dragged me down into the pit, I say, and were 
greedy in their desire to kill me. The nature of the 
death they would have inflicted upon me had already 
been made clear by the words the Jew had spoken. 
The pain of fire in any shape has always been my 
supreme dread, and when the dazzling white light 
shone upon me from the unspeakable furnaces, and 
I told myself that these men would shrink from no 
measure which would blot out every trace of their 
crime in an instant, then, God knows, I suffered as 
I believe few have done. Vain to say that such a 
death must be too horrible to contemplate! The 
faces of the men about me belied hope. I read 
no message of pity upon any one of them — nothing 
but the desire of my life, the criminal blood-lust, and 
the anger of discovery. And, God be my witness, 
had they left me my revolver, I would have shot my- 
self where I stood. 

An unnamable fear, a dread surpassing all power 
of expression, such terror as might abase a man to 
the very dust, set him weeping like a child, or crav- 
ing mercy from his bitterest enemy — this I suffered 
in that moment when my imagination reeled at its 

10 139 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


own thoughts, when it depicted for me the agony 
that a man must suffer, cast pitilessly into the bowels 
of a flaming furnace and burned to ashes as coal is 
burned when the blast is turned upon it. Nothing 
under heaven or earth would I not have given the 
men, if thereby the dread of the fire had been taken 
from me. I believe that I would have bartered my 
very soul for the salvation of the pistol or the knife. 

Let this be told, and then that which follows after 
is the more readily understood. The men dragged 
me down into the pit and stood crying about me like 
so many ravening wolves. The Jew, forcing his way 
through the press, uttered strange sounds, incohe- 
rent and terrible, and seeming to say that he had 
already judged and condemned me. In such a sense 
the men interpreted him; and two of them, moving 
the great levers which opened the furnace doors, 
they revealed the very heart of the monstrous fire, 
white as the glory of the sun, glowing as a lake of 
flame, a torrid, molten, unnamable fire, toward which 
strong arms impelled me, blows thrust me, the naked 
bodies of the human devils impelled me. For my 
part, I turned upon them as a man upon the brink 
of the most terrible death conceivable. They had 
snatched my revolver from me; I had but my strong 
arms, my lithe shoulders, to pit against theirs, and 
with these I fought as a wild beast at bay. Now 
upon my feet, now down amongst them, striking 
140 


THE ALARM 

savage blows at their upturned faces, it is no boast 
to say that their very numbers thwarted their pur- 
pose and delayed the issue. And more than this, I 
found another ally, one neither in their calculations 
nor my own. This befriended me beyond all hope — 
served me as no human friendship could have done. 
For, in a word, it soon appeared that they could 
thrust me but a little way toward the furnace doors, 
and beyond that point were impotent. The heat 
overpowered them. Trained as they were, they 
could not suffer it. I saw them falling back from 
me one by one. I heard them vainly crying for this 
measure or for that. The furnace mastered them. 
It left me at last alone before its open doors, and, 
staggering to my feet, I fell headlong in a faint that 
death might well have terminated. 

A cool air blowing upon my forehead gave me 
back my senses, I know not after what interval of 
time or space. Opening my eyes, I perceived that 
men were carrying me in a kind of palanquin through 
a deep passage of the rock, and that torches of pitch 
and flax guided them as they went. The tunnel was 
lofty and its roof clean cut as though by man and 
not by Nature. The men themselves were clothed in 
long white blouses, and none of them appeared to 
carry arms. I addressed the nearest of them, and 
asked him where I was. He answered me in French, 
141 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


not unkindly, and with an evident desire to be the 
bearer of good tidings. 

“We are taking you to the Valley House, mon- 
sieur— it is Herr Imroth’s order.” 

“ Are these the men who were with him down 
yonder.? ” 

“ Some of them, monsieur. Herr Imroth has 
spoken and they know you. Fear nothing; they 
will be your friends.” 

My sardonic smile could not be hidden from him. 
I understood that the Jew had found his tongue in 
time to save my life, and that this journey was a 
witness to the fact. At the same time an intense 
weakness quite mastered my faculties and left me in 
that somewhat dreamy state when every circumstance 
is accepted without question and all that is done 
seems in perfect accord with the occasion. Indeed, 
I must have fallen again into a sleep of weakness al- 
most immediately ; for, when next I opened my eyes, 
the sun was shining into the room where I lay and 
no other than General Fordibras stood by my bedside 
watching me. Then I understood that this was what 
the Frenchman meant by the Valley House, and that 
here the Jew’s servants had carried me from the cave 
of the forges. 

Now I might very naturally have looked to see 
Joan’s father at an early moment after my arrival 
at Santa Maria, and yet I confess that his presence 
142 


THE ALARM 


in this room both surprised and pleased me. What- 
ever the man might be, however questionable his 
story, he stood in sharp contrast to the Jew and the 
savages with whom the Jew worked, up yonder in the 
caves of the hills. A soldier in manner, polished and 
reserved in speech, the general had been an enigma 
to me from the beginning. Nevertheless, excepting 
only my servant Okyada, I would as soon have found 
him at my bedside as any man upon the island of 
Santa Maria; and when he spoke, though I believed 
his tale to be but a silly lie, I would as lief have heard 
it as any common cant of welcome. 

“ I come to ask after a very foolish man,” he said 
with a sternness which seemed real enough ; “ it ap- 
pears that the visit was unnecessary.” 

I sat up in bed and filled my lungs with the sweet 
fresh air of morning. 

“ If you know the story,” I said, “ we shall go no 
further by recalling the particulars of it. I came 
here to find what you and your servants were doing 
at Santa Maria, and the discovery was attended by 
unpleasant consequences. I grant you the foolish- 
ness — do me the favor to spare me the pity.” 

He turned from my bedside abruptly and walked 
to the windows as though to open them still wider. 

‘‘ As you will,” he said ; “ the time may come when 
neither will spare the other anything. If you think 
it is not yet ” 


143 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


“ It shall be when you please. I am always ready, 
General Fordibras. Speak or be silent, you can add 
very little to that which I know. But should you 

choose to make a bargain with me ? ” 

He wheeled about hot with anger. 

‘‘ What dishonor is this ! ” he exclaimed ; “ you 
come here to spy upon me; you escape from my 
house like a common footpad, and go up to the 
mines ” 

“The mines. General Fordibras!” 

“ Nowhere else. Dr. Fabos. Do you think that 
I am deceived You came to this country to steal 
the secrets of which I am the rightful guardian. 
You think to enrich yourself. You would return 
to London, to your fellows, knaves of Throgmorton 
Street, and say, there is gold in the Azores, exploit 
it, buy the people out, deal with the Government 
of Portugal. You pry upon my workmen openly, 
and but for my steward, Herr Imroth, you would 
not be alive this morning to tell the story. Are you 
the man with whom I, Herbert Fordibras, the master 
of these lands, shall make a bargain In God’s 
name, what next am I to hear ? ” 

I leaned back upon the pillow and regarded him 
fixedly with that look of pity and contempt the dis- 
covery of a lie rarely fails to earn. 

“ The next thing you are to hear,” I said quietly, 
“ is that the English Government has discovered the 
lU 


THE ALARM 


true owners of the Diamond Ship and is perfectly 
acquainted with her whereabouts.” 

It is always a little pathetic to witness the abjec- 
tion of a man of fine bearing and habitual dignity. 
I confess to some sympathy with General Fordibras 
in that moment. Had I struck him he would have 
been a man before me, but the declaration robbed 
him instantly even of the distinction of his presence. 
For long minutes together he halted there, try- 
ing to speak but lacking words, the lamentable figure 
of a broken man. 

“ By what right do you intervene.? ” he asked at 
last. “ Who sent you to be my accuser ? Are you, 
then, above others, a judge of men.? Good God! 
do you not see that your very life depends upon my 
clemency.? At a word from me ” 

“ It will never be spoken,” I said, still keeping 
my eyes upon him. “ Such crimes as you have com- 
mitted, Herbert Fordibras, have been in some part 
the crimes of compulsion, in some of accident. You 
are not wholly a guilty man. The Jew is your mas- 
ter. When the Jew is upon the scaffold, I may be 
your advocate. That is as you permit. You see 
that I understand you, and am able to read your 
thoughts. You are one of those men who shield 
themselves behind the curtain of crime and let your 
dupes hand you their offerings covertly. You do 
not see their faces; you rarely hear their voices. 
145 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


That is my judgment of you — guesswork if you 
will, my judgment none the less. Such a man tells 
everything when the alternative is trial and sentence. 
You will not differ from the others when the proper 
time comes. I am as sure of it as of my own exist- 
ence. You will save yourself for your daughter’s 
sake ” 

He interrupted me with just a spark of re- 
animation, perplexing for the moment, but to be 
remembered afterwards by me to the end of my 
life. 

“ Is my daughter more than my honor, then ? 
Leave her out of this, if you please. You have put 
a plain question to me, and I will answer you in the 
same terms. Your visit here is a delusion ; your 
story, a lie. If I do not punish you, it is for my 
daughter’s sake. Thank her. Dr. Fabos. Time will 
modify your opinion of me and bring you to reason. 
Let there be a truce of time, then, between us. I will 
treat you as my guest, and you shall call me host. 
What comes after may be for our mutual good. It 
is too early to speak of that yet.” 

I did not reply, as I might well have done, that our 
“ mutual good ” must imply my willingness to re- 
main tongue-tied at a price — to sell my conscience 
to him and his for just such a sum as their security 
dictated. It was too early, as he said, to come to 
that close encounter which must either blast this 
146 


THE ALARM 


great conspiracy altogether or result in my own 
final ignominy. The “ truce of time ” he offered 
suited me perfectly. I knew now that these men 
feared to kill me; my own steadfast belief, upon 
which I had staked my very life, that their curiosity 
would postpone their vengeance, had been twice jus- 
tified. They spared me, as I had foreseen that they 
would, because they wished to ascertain who and 
what I was, the friends I had behind me, the extent 
of my knowledge concerning them. Such clemency 
would continue as long as their own uncertainty 
endured. I determined, therefore, to take the gen- 
eral at his word, and, giving no pledge, to profit to 
the uttermost by every opportunity his fears per- 
mitted to me. 

“ There shall be a truce, by all means,” I said ; 
“ beyond that I will say nothing. Pledge your honor 
for my safety here, and I will pledge mine that if 
I can save you from yourself I will do so. Nothing 
more is possible to me. You will not ask me to go 
further than that.” 

He replied, vaguely as before, that time would 
bring us to a mutual understanding, and that, mean- 
while, I was as safe at Santa Maria as in my own 
house in Suffolk. 

“ We shall keep you up here at the Chalet,” he 
said ; “ it is warmer and drier than the other house. 
My daughter is coming up to breakfast. You will 
147 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


find her below if you care to get up. I myself must 
go to St. Michael’s again to-day. I have urgent 
business there. But Joan will show you all that is 
to be seen, and we shall meet again to-morrow night 
at dinner if the sea keeps as it is.” 

To this I answered that I certainly would get up, 
and I begged him to send my servant, Okyada, to 
me. Anxiety for the faithful fellow had been in my 
mind since I awoke an hour ago; and although my 
confidence in his cleverness forbade any serious doubt 
of his safety, I heard the general’s news of him with 
every satisfaction. 

“We believe that your man returned to the yacht 
last night,” he said. “No doubt, if you go on board 
to-day, you will find him. The Irish gentleman, Mr. 
McShanus, was in Villa da Porto inquiring for you 
very early this morning. My servants can take a 
message down if you wish it.” 

I thanked him, but expressed my intention of 
returning to the yacht — at the latest, to dinner. 
He did not appear in any way surprised, nor did 
he flinch at my close scrutiny. Apparently, he was 
candor itself ; and I could not help but reflect that 
he must have had the poorest opinion both of my 
own prescience and of my credulity. For my own 
part, I had no doubts at all about the matter, and 
I knew that I was a prisoner in the house, and that 
they would keep me there either until I joined them 
148 


THE ALARM 

or they could conveniently and safely make away 
with me. 

Nor was this to speak of a more dangerous, a 
subtler weapon, which should freely barter a woman’s 
honor for my consent, and offer me Joan Fordibras 
if I would save a rogue’s neck from the gallows. 


149 


CHAPTER XVI 


AT VALLEY HOUSE 

A French valet came to me when General Fordi- 
bras had gone, and offered to send to the yacht 
for any luggage that I might need and also, if I 
wished it, to have the English doctor, Wilson, up from 
Villa da Porto to see me. This also had been the gen- 
eral’s idea; but I had no hurt of last night’s affray 
beyond a few bruises and an abrasion of the skin 
where I fell, and I declined the service as politely 
as might be. As for my luggage, I had taken a 
dressing case to the Villa San Jorge, and this had 
now been brought up to the chalet, as the fellow told 
me. I said that it would suffice for the brief stay 
I intended to make at Santa Maria; and, dressing 
impatiently, I went down to make a better acquaint- 
ance both with the house and its inmates. 

Imagine a pretty Swiss chalet set high in the cleft 
of a mountain, with a well-wooded green valley of its 
own lying at its very door, and beyond the valley, 
on the far side, the sheer cliff of a lesser peak, rising 
up so forbiddingly that it might have been the great 
150 


AT VALLEY HOUSE 

wall of a fortress or a castle. Such was Valley 
House, a dot upon the mountainside, a jalousied, 
red-roofed cottage, guarded everywhere by walls of 
rock, and yet possessing its little park which boasted 
almost a tropic luxuriance. Never have I seen a 
greater variety of shrubs, or such an odd assort- 
ment, in any garden, either of Europe or Africa. 
Box, Scotch fir, a fine show both of orange and lemon 
in bloom, the citron, the pomegranate, African 
palms, Australian eucalyptus, that abundant fern, 
the native cabellinho — here you had them all in an 
atmosphere which suggested the warm valleys of the 
Pyrenees, beneath a sky which the Riviera might 
have shown to you. So much I perceived directly 
I went out upon the veranda of the house. The 
men who had built this chalet had built a retreat 
among the hills which the richest might envy. I did 
not wonder that General Fordibras could speak of 
it with pride. 

There was no one but an old negro servant about 
the house when I passed out to the veranda; and 
beyond wishing me “ Good morning, Massa Doctor,” 
I found him entirely uncommunicative. A clock in 
the hall made out the time to be a quarter past 
eleven. I perceived that the table had been lain for 
the midday breakfast and that two covers were set. 
The second would be for Joan Fordibras, I said; 
and my heart beating a little quickly at the thought, 
151 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


I determined, if it were possible, to reconnoiter the 
situation before her arrival, and to know the best 
or the worst of it at once. That I was the prisoner 
of the valley I never had a doubt. It lay upon me, 
then, to face the fact, and so to reckon with it that 
my wit should find the door which these men had so 
cunningly closed upon me. 

Now the first observation I made, standing upon 
the veranda of the house, was one concerning the 
sea and my situation regarding it. I observed imme- 
diately that the harbor of Villa da Porto lay hidden 
from my view by the eastern cliff of the valley. The 
Atlantic showed me but two patches of blue-green 
water, one almost to the southwest, and a second, of 
greater extent, to the north. Except for these 
glimpses of the ocean, I had no view of the world 
without the valley, not so much as that of a roof 
or spire or even of the smoke of a human habitation. 
Whoever had chosen this site for his chMet of the 
hills had chosen it where man could not pry upon 
him, nor even ships at sea become acquainted with 
his movements. The fact was so very evident that 
I accepted it at once, and turned immediately to an 
examination of the grounds themselves, in extent, 
perhaps, a matter of five acres, my early opinion 
of their security was in no way altered by a closer 
inspection of them. They were, I saw, girt about 
everywhere by the sheer walls of monstrous cliffs; 
152 


AT VALLEY HOUSE 


and as though to add the suggestion of terror, I 
discovered that they were defended in their weakness 
by a rushing torrent of boiling water, foaming up- 
ward from some deep natural pool below and thence 
rushing in a very cataract close to the wall of the 
mountain at the one spot where a clever moun- 
taineer might have climbed the arrete of the preci- 
pice and so broken the prison. This coincidence 
hardly presented its true meaning to me at the 
first glance. I came to understand it later, as you 
shall see. 

Walls of rock everywhere; no visible gate; no 
path or road, no crevice or gully, by which a man 
might enter this almost fabulous valley from with- 
out! To this conclusion I came at the end of my 
first tour of the grounds. No prison had ever been 
contrived so cunningly ; no human retreat made 
more inaccessible. As they had carried me through 
a tunnel of the mountain last night, so I knew that 
the owner of the chalet came and had returned ; and 
that until I found the gate of that cavern, and my 
wits unlocked it, I was as surely hidden from the 
knowledge of men as though the doors of the 
Schlussenburg had closed upon me. 

Such a truth could not but appall me. I accepted 
it with something very like a shudder; and, seek- 
ing to forget it, I returned to the hither garden 
and its many evidences of scientific horticulture. 
153 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


Here, truly, the hand of civilization and of the 
human amenities had left its imprint. If this might 
be, as imagination suggested, a valley of crime un- 
known, of cruelty and suffering and lust, none the 
less had those who peopled it, looked up sometimes 
to the sun or bent their heads in homage to the rose. 
Even at this inclement season I found blooms in 
abundance which England would not have given me 
until May. One pretty bower I shall never forget, an 
arbor perched upon a grassy bank with a mountain 
pool and fountain before its doors, and trailing 
creeper about it, and the great red flower of begonia 
giving it a sheen of crimson, very beautiful and wel- 
come amidst this maze of green. Here I would have 
entered to make a note upon paper of all that the 
morning had taught me; but I was hardly at the 
door of the little house when I discovered that an- 
other occupied it already, and, starting back as she 
looked up, I found myself face to face with Joan 
Fordibras. 

She sat before a rude table of entwined logs, her 
face resting upon weary arms and her dark chestnut 
hair streaming all about her. I saw that she had 
been weeping, and that tears still glistened upon the 
dark lashes of her eloquent eyes. Her dress was 
a simple morning gown of muslin ; and a bunch of 
roses had been crushed by her nervous fingers and 
the leaves scattered, one by one, upon the ground. 
154 ! 


AT VALLEY HOUSE 


At my coming the color rushed back to her cheeks, 
and she half rose as though afraid of me. I stood 
my ground, however, for her sake and my own. Now 
must I speak with her; now, once and forever, 
tell her that which I had come to Santa Maria 
to say. 

“ Miss Fordibras,” I said quietly, “ you are in 
trouble and I can help you.” 

She did not answer me. A flood of tears seemed 
to conquer her. 

‘‘ Yes,” she said, and how changed she was from 
my little Joan of Dieppe. 

I crossed the arbor and seated myself near her. 

“ The grief of being misnamed the daughter of 
a man who is unworthy of being called your father. 
Tell me if I am mistaken. You are not the daughter 
of Hubert Fordibras. You are no real relative 
of his.?” 

A woman’s curiosity is often as potent an antidote 
to grief as artifice may devise. I shall never forget 
the look upon Joan Fordibras’s face when I con- 
fessed an opinion I had formed but the half of an 
hour ago. She was not the general’s daughter. The 
manner in which he had spoken of her was not the 
manner of a father uttering the name of his child. 

“Did my father tell you that.?” she asked me, 
looking up amazed. 

“ He has told me nothing save that I should enjoy 
11 155 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


your company and that of your companion at the 
breakfast table. Miss Aston, I suppose, is de- 
tained? ” 

This shrewd and very innocent untruth appeared 
to give her confidence. I think that she believed it. 
The suggestion that we were not to be alone together 
did much to make the situation possible. She sat 
upright now, and began again to pluck the rose 
leaves from her posey. 

“Miss Aston is at the Villa San Jorge. I did 
not wish to come alone, but my father insisted. 
That’s why you found me crying. I hated it — I 
hate this place and everyone about it. You know 
that I do. Dr. Fabos. They cannot hide anything 
from you. I said so when first I saw you in London. 
You are one of those men to whom women tell every- 
thing. I could not keep a secret from you if my life 
depended upon it.” 

“ Is there any necessity to do so. Miss Fordibras ? 
Are not some secrets best told to our friends?” 

I saw that she was greatly tempted; and it oc- 
curred to me that what I had to contend with was 
some pledge or promise she had given to General 
Fordibras. This man’s evil influence could neither 
be concealed nor denied. She had passed her word 
to him and would not break it. 

“ I will tell you nothing — I dare not ! ” she ex- 
claimed at length, wrestling visibly with a wild 
156 


AT VALLEY HOUSE 


desire to speak. “ It would not help you ; it could 
not serve you. Leave the place at once, Dr. Fabos. 
Never think or speak of us again. Go right now! 
Say good-by to me and try to forget that such a 
person exists. That’s my secret ; that’s what I came 
up here to tell you, never minding what you might 
think of me.” 

A crimson blush came again to her pretty cheeks, 
and she feared to look me in the eyes. I had quite 
made up my mind how to deal with her, and acted 
accordingly. Her promise I respected. Neither 
fear of the general nor good will toward me must 
induce her to break it. 

“ That’s a fine word of wisdom,” I said ; “ but it 
appears to me that I want a pair of wings if I am 
to obey you. Did they not tell you that I am a 
prisoner here? ” 

“ A prisoner — oh, no, no ” 

“ Indeed so — a prisoner who has yet to find the 
road which leads to the seashore. Sooner or later 
I shall discover it, and we will set out upon it to- 
gether. At the moment my eyes show me nothing 
but the hills. Perhaps I am grown a little blind, 
dear child. If that is so, you must lead me.” 

She started up amazed and ran to the door of the 
arbor. The quick pulsations of her heart were to 
be counted beneath her frail gown of muslin. I 
could see that she looked away to the corner of the 

157 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


gardens where the boiling spring swirled and eddied 
beneath the shallow cliff. 

“ The bridge is there — down there by the water ! ” 
she cried excitedly ; “ I crossed it an hour ago, an 
iron bridge, Dr. Fabos, with a little flight of steps 
leading up to it. Why do you talk so wildly.? Am 
I so foolish, then.? ” 

I went and stood beside her, a rose from her 
bouquet in my hand. 

“ The elves play with us,” I said evasively ; “ your 
bridge has vanished with the morning mists. The 
fairies must have carried it over the mountains for 
the love of a footprint. Let us put it out of our 
thoughts. Who knows, if we have the mind, that 
we cannot build another ! ” 

This I said that she might read into it a deeper 
meaning of my confidence; but the words were vain. 
White and frightened, and terribly afraid, she 
looked at me for an instant, as though I were in 
some way a consenting party to this evil conspiracy, 
then as quickly repented of her look and declared 
her woman’s heart. 

“ I cannot believe it ! ” she cried ; “ I am so help- 
less. Tell me. Dr. Fabos, what shall I do — in God’s 
name, what shall I do .? ” 

“ Accept my friendship and bestow upon me your 
confidence. Promise that you will leaA^e this place 
when I leave it, and end forever your association 
158 


AT VALLEY HOUSE 


with these men ! I ask nothing more. My own 
secret must go with me yet a little while. But I 
shall call you Joan, and no name shall be dearer to 
me — if you wish it, little comrade.^ ” 

She turned from me, the hot tears in her eyes. 
I knew that she would never be afraid of me again; 
and when a little while had passed, I led her to the 
house, and as any brother and sister we sat at the 
breakfast table and spoke of common things. 

And yet, God knows, the shame of such an hour 
lay heavily upon me. For had not these people been 
willing to buy their own safety at the price of this 
young girl’s honor 


159 


CHAPTER XVII 


THE NINE DAYS OF SILENCE 

We were nine days together at the Valley House 
without any word or sign from those without. The 
evil of this conspiracy I found almost less to be con- 
demned than the childish folly of it. There is noth- 
ing more remarkable in the story of crime than the 
senile mistakes of some of its masters — men shrewd 
to the point of wonder in all other affairs, but betray- 
ing their mental aberration in some one act at which 
even the very ignorant might smile. So it was with 
this sham story of the valley and the pretended acci- 
dent which kept me from the ship. Every day, with 
a punctuality as amusing as the tale was plausible, 
the French valet and the servants below apologized 
for the accident which alone, they declared, pre- 
vented my return to the ship. 

A disaster had overtaken the valley bridge ! The 
passage by the mountains was never used but by 
General Fordibras alone! That was their tale. As 
for the general, his desolation would be beyond 
words when he heard of it. Unfortunately he had 
160 


NINE DAYS OF SILENCE 

been detained at St. Michael’s, and they could only 
imagine that the rough seas of the last few days 
were answerable for it. All that was humanly pos- 
sible, they felt sure, was being done by the engineers 
below. Fortunate that the mining operations in the 
mountains had brought so many workmen to the 
island. My release, they said, and that of my young 
mistress, could be but a matter of a few hours. 

Now, I have turned up my diary for those nine 
days, and I find that upon the first of them I came 
to certain definite conclusions which may be of inter- 
est to my reader. They were these: 

(1) The criminals feared nothing from the pres- 
ence of my yacht. Either the island was watched 
by some powerful and speedy armed ship of their 
own, or they had convinced Captain Larry that all 
was well with me. 

(2) They were in league with the local Portu- 
guese officials of Villa da Porto, who, I did not 
doubt, had been richly rewarded for a little diligent 
blindness. 

(3) They believed that I had fallen in love with 
Joan Fordibras, and for her sake would either hold 
my peace forever, or join in with them. This was 
their master stroke. It was also the apotheosis of 
their folly. 

Imagine, at the same time, my own difficulties. 

161 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


Save for two ancient servants, a maid, and a valet, 
this young girl and I were alone at the chalet, and 
seemingly as remote from the world as though we 
had been prisoners of an Eastern despotism. She 
knew, and I knew, with what hopes and designs this 
clumsy trap had been contrived. Let us find solace 
in each other’s society, and our human passion must 
prove stronger than any merely moral impulse 
directed against Valentine Imroth and his con- 
federates. Such was the argument employed by 
our enemies. They would expose me to the con- 
demnation of the world if I withstood them, or 
secure my silence if I assented to their plans. The 
thing was so daring, so utterly unexpected, that I 
do believe it would have succeeded but for one plain 
fact these men had overlooked. And that was noth- 
ing less than the good common sense and real 
womanly courage which my little companion brought 
to our assistance and offered me unflinchingly in that 
amazing hour. 

For you must understand that we had talked but 
in enigmas hitherto, both at Dieppe and at the Villa 
San Jorge, where I went upon landing from my 
yacht. Now it fell upon me to speak to her as to 
one who must share my secrets and be the confidante 
of them. Cost me what it might, let there be a great 
love for her growing in my heart, I resolved that 
not one word of it should be uttered at Santa Maria. 

162 


NINE DAYS OF SILENCE 


So much I owed both to myself and her. There 
were subjects enough, God knows, upon which a man 
might be eloquent. I chose the story of her own life 
to begin with, and heard her story as no other lips 
could have told it so sweetly. 

This was upon the second day of our captivity — 
a warm, sunny day, with a fresh breeze blowing in 
from west by north and a glorious heaven of blue 
sky above us. I remember that she wore a gown of 
lace, and had a turquoise chain about her throat. 
We had breakfasted together and heard the servants’ 
familiar apologies. The general would certainly 
return from St. Michael’s to-day, they said — the 
engineers could not fail to restore the bridge by sun- 
set. Joan heard them with ears that tingled; I did 
not hear them at all, but going out with her to the 
gardens I asked her if she had always known General 
Fordibras, and what her recollections of that asso- 
ciation were. To which she replied that she remem- 
bered him as long as she remembered anyone at all. 

“ There was another face — so long ago, so very 
long ago,” she said, almost wearily ; “ I have always 
hoped and believed that it was my mother’s face. 
When I was a very little girl I lived in a house which 
stood by a great river. It must have been Hudson 
River, I think. General Fordibras used to visit the 
house; I was very young then, and I wonder that 
I remember it.” 


163 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


“ You left this house,” I put it to her, “ and then 
you went to school. Was that in America or 
London ? ” 

“ It was first in New York, then in London, and 
to finish in Paris. I left school three years ago, and 
we have been all over the world since. General 
Fordibras never stops long in one place. He says 
he is too restless. I don’t know. Dr. Fabos — I have 
given up trying to think about it.” 

“ And hate me accordingly for my questions. I 
will make them as brief as possible. How long is 
it since you first knew Mr. Imroth, and where did 
you first meet him.'^ ” 

This reference plainly embarrassed her. I saw 
that she answered my question with reluctance. 

“ Please do not speak of Mr. Imroth. I am afraid 
of him. Dr. Fabos. I do believe that I am more afraid 
of him than of anybody I have ever known. If evil 
comes to me, Mr. Imroth will send it.” 

“ A natural antipathy. Some day, Joan, you will 
look upon all this and thank God that a stranger 
came to your island. I shall have done with Mr. 
Valentine Imroth then. There will be no need at all 
to fear him.” 

She did not understand me, and plied me with 
many questions, some exceedingly shrewd, all 
directed to one end, that she might know the best 
or the worst of the life that they had been living, 
164 


NINE DAYS OF SILENCE 


and what part the general had played in it. To this 
I responded that I could by no means judge until 
the case both for and against him were wholly known 
to me. 

“ He may be but a dupe,” I said ; “ time and oppor- 
tunity will tell me. You owe much to him, you say, 
for many kindnesses received during childhood. I 
shall not forget that when the day of reckoning 
comes. Joan, I shall forget none who has been kind 
to you.” 

Her gratitude was pretty enough to see, and I 
witnessed it many times during the long hours of 
those hazardous days. From morn to night, she 
was my little companion of the gardens. I came 
to know her as a man rarely knows a woman who is 
not a wife to him. Every bush, every path, every 
tree and shrub of our kingdom, we named and num- 
bered. Grown confident in my protection, her sweet 
laughter became the music of the valley, her voice 
the notes of its song, her presence its divinity. If 
I had discerned the secret of her fearlessness, that 
must be a secret to me also, locked away as a treas- 
ure that a distant day will reveal. My own anxieties 
were so heavy that I dared not share them with her. 
The yacht, my friends, my servant — where were 
they.? What happened beyond that monstrous cur- 
tain of the mountains, that precipice which hid the 
island world from us.? Had they done nothing, then, 
165 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


those comrades in whose loyalty I trusted? Was it 
possible that even the faithful Okyada had deserted 
me? I did not believe it for an instant. My eyes 
told me that it was not true. A voice spoke to me 
every day. I read it as a man reads a book of fate 
— an image cast upon the waters, a sign given which 
shall not be mistaken. 

He who pits his life against the intelligence of 
criminals must be equipped with many natural 
weapons. Nothing certainly is more necessary 
than the habit of observation. To watch every 
straw the winds of conspiracy may blow, to read 
every cryptic message the voice of crime may utter, 
to be ever alert, vigilant, resourceful, is something 
more than mere equipment; it is very salvation to 
the investigator. Trained in these qualities by long 
years of patient study, there were signs and omens of 
the valley for me, which another might have passed 
by without remark. Strange footprints upon the 
darkest paths, shrubs disturbed, scraps of paper 
thrown down with little caution — ^not one of them 
escaped me. But beyond them all, the rampart of 
the foaming water enchained my attention, and 
fascinated me as at some human call to action. 
Day by day the volume of the water in the boiling 
river was growing less. I first remarked it on the 
third day of our imprisonment ; I made sure of it 
on the fifth day. Inch by inch, from ledge to ledge, 
166 


NINE DAYS OF SILENCE 


it sank in its channel. Another, perhaps, would have 
attributed this to some natural phenomenon. I had 
too much faith in the man who served me, to believe 
any such thing. Okyada was at work, I said. The 
hour of my liberty was at hand. 

You may imagine how this discovery affected me, 
and how much it was in my mind when I spoke to 
Joan of our approaching days of freedom. To my 
question, whether she would visit me again at my 
house in Suffolk, she replied chiefly by a flushing of 
her clear cheeks and a quick look from those eyes 
which could be so eloquent. 

“ Your sister did not like me,” she rejoined eva- 
sively ; ‘‘ the dear old thing, I could see her watch- 
ing me just as though I had come to steal you 
from her ! ” 

“ Would you have felt very guilty if you had done 
so, J oan ? ” 

“ Yes,” she said, and this so seriously that I re- 
gretted the question — “ guilty to my life’s end. 
Dr. Fabos.” 

I knew that she referred to the story of her own 
life and the men among whom destiny had sent her. 
Here was a barrier of the past which must stand 
between us to all time, she would have said. The 
same thought had disquieted me often, not for my 
sake, but for her own. 

I would to God, Joan,” I said, ‘‘ there were no 

167 


(t 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


greater guilt in the world than this you speak of. 
You forbid me to say so. Shall I tell you why? ” 

She nodded her head, looking away to the patch 
of blue water revealed by the gorge of the moun- 
tains. I lay at her side, and had all a man’s impulse 
to take her in my arms and tell her that which my 
heart had prompted me to say so many days. God 
knows I had come to love this fragile, sweet-willed 
child of fortune beyond any other hope of my life 
or ambition of the years. Day by day her eyes 
looked into my very soul, awakening there a spirit, 
a knowledge, of whose existence I had been wholly 
ignorant. I loved her, and thus had fallen to the 
snare my enemies had set for me. How little they 
understood me, I thought. 

“ You forbid me to say so, Joan,” I ran on, ‘‘ be- 
cause you do not trust me.” 

“ Do not trust you. Dr. Fabos? ” 

“ Not sufficiently to say that I am about to save 
you from all dangers, even the danger of past years.” 

‘‘ You cannot do that — oh, you cannot do it, 
Dr. Fabos ! ” 

I covered her hand with my own, and tried to 
compel her to look me in the face. 

“ When a woman learns to love and is loved, she 
has no past,” I said ; “ all that should concern her 
is the happiness of the man to whom she has given 
her life. In your own case I believe that we shall 
168 


NINE DAYS OF SILENCE 


read the story of bygone years together, and find 
it a sweet story. I do not know, Joan; I am only 
guessing ; but I think it will be a story of a woman’s 
love and a father’s suffering and of an innocent man 
upon whom the gates of a prison were long closed. 
Say that the child of these two, entitled to fortune 
in her own right, became the prey of a villain and we 
shall be far upon our way. That’s the thought of 
your prophet. He would give much, Joan, if the 
facts were as he believes them to be.” 

Be sure she turned her head at this and looked 
me full in the face. I have never seen so many emo- 
tions expressed upon a childish face — joy, doubt, 
love, fear. Quick as all her race to read an enigma, 
she understood me almost as soon as I had spoken. 
A light of wondrous thankfulness shone in her eyes. 
There were long minutes together when we sat there 
in silence, and the only sound was that of her heart 
beating. 

“ Oh,” she cried, ‘‘ if it were true. Dr. Fabos, if 
it were true ! ” 

“ I will prove it true before we have been in Eng- 
land a month.” 

She laughed a little sadly. 

“England — England; how far is England away.? 
And my own dear America.? ” 

“ Seven days in my yacht. White Wings. 

“ If we were birds to fly over the hills ! ” 

169 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


“ The hills will be kind to us. To-day, to-morrow, 
whenever it is, Joan, will you cross the hills with 
me.?” 

She promised me with a warmth that betrayed her 
desire; and fearing to dwell upon it, I left her and 
went again to the little river to see what message it 
had for me. Did the waters still subside, or had my 
fancy been an hallucination.? Standing this day 
upon the very brink of the chasm through which the 
river flowed, I knew that I was not mistaken. The 
stream had subsided by another foot at the least; 
it no longer raced and tumbled through the gorge; 
it was scarcely more than warm to the hand. Some 
one without had diverted its course, and would dam 
it altogether when the good hour came. When that 
hour might be I had no means of knowing. But my 
course was clear. I must rest neither night nor day 
while deliverance was at hand ; there must be neither 
sleeping nor waking for me until Okyada called me 
and the gate stood open. 

And what of Joan — what of my promise to her? 
Should I leave her the prisoner of the valley, or take 
her over the hills as I had promised? The respon- 
sibility was greater than any I had ever faced. Let 
her go with me, and what a tale these villains would 
have to tell to the world ! Let her remain, and what 
cruelty, what persecution, might she not suffer at 
the Valley House. I knew not what to do. It may 
170 


NINE DAYS OF SILENCE 

be that Fortune wished well to me when she took the 
matter out of my hands and left me no alternative 
but to go alone. However it be, I shall relate in a 
word the simple fact that Okyada, my servant, en- 
tered my bedroom at ten o’clock that very night, and 
that when I crossed the landing to wake Joan she did 
not answer me, nor could my diligent search discover 
her to be in the house at all. 

And the minutes of my opportunity were precious 
beyond all reckoning. 

“ Good God ! ” I cried, “ that I must leave her to 
such men and to such a judgment!” 

For I knew that it must be so, and that by flight 
alone, and the perils of flight, would our salvation 
be won. 


12 


171 


CHAPTER XVIII 


DOWN TO THE SEA 

There was not a sound within the house, nor did 
an open window upon the landing admit any signal 
of alarm from the gardens. I could but hazard 
that the little Jap had crossed the gully of the 
river and come by such a road into the valley. To 
question him would have been as absurd as to delay. 
Here he was, and there stood the open door. When 
he thrust a revolver into my hand and bade me follow 
him by the low veranda to the gardens below, I 
obeyed without further hesitation. The mystery of 
Joan’s disappearance asked for no clever solution. 
This night, I said, the Jew had meant to kill me. 
And for the first time, it may be, I realized the 
deadly peril I had lived through at the Valley House. 

Okyada has never been a man of many words. I 
think he uttered but two that night as we crossed 
the valley garden and made for the river bank. 
“ Shoot, master,” he said, meaning that if any barred 
the way the time for passive flight had passed. I 
nodded my head in answer, and pressed closer upon 
his heels as he entered the maze of shrubs which 
172 


DOWN TO THE SEA 


defended the gully. The silence about us had become 
a burden to the nerves. Was it possible that none 
of the Jew’s men watched the garden? Indeed, for 
a moment that appeared to be the truth. 

We gained the bank of the whirlpool of yesterday, 
and for a few minutes lay flat in the shadow of the 
great border of the rock which rises up above the 
gully. Behind us we could espy the lighted windows 
of the bedroom I had just left and the clear shape 
of the silent chalet. The gardens and the woods 
were so many patches of black against an azure sky 
of night. The water below us flowed, in color a 
deep indigo, between walls of lightless rock, in a bed 
of polished stone. Not a breath of wind stirred the 
pines upon the hillside. We could no longer see the 
ocean without or the friendly lights it showed to us. 
We might have been fugitives upon a desert island; 
and this deception would have continued possible, 
until the sound of a distant rifleshot awoke a thou- 
sand echoes in the hills and shattered in a single 
instant the dream of security we had found so 
pleasing. 

Okyada sprang up at the sound and began to 
speak with an earnestness of which he was rarely 
guilty. 

“ They have found the honorable captain — quick, 
master, we must go to him ! ” he said. 

My answer was to point up to the sloping lawn 

173 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


of the garden we had left. There, in single file, 
the figures of seven men, crossing the grass boldly 
toward the chalet, were clearly to be discerned. I 
had scarcely observed them when a movement in the 
shrubbery immediately behind us betrayed the pres- 
ence of others — three in all, who came out to the 
water’s edge at a place not ten yards from where we 
stood, and, halting there a little while to inspect the 
gully, afterwards made off through the woods as 
though to join the others above. 

“ Old Val gets such notions into his woolly 
cranium,” said one of them as he went ; “ if there’s 
any lousy Englishman going across there to-night, 
I’m derned if he ain’t a — mermaid.” 

A second ventured that the water was lower than 
he had ever seen it ; while the third added the opinion 
that, low or high, it was hot enough to warm the 

grog of a Kongo nigger and a sight too hot for 

any police nark to try it. 

We listened to them, crouching low to the rock, 
and with our revolvers ready to our hands. Had 
the most trifling accident occurred, a falling pebble 
or a clumsy movement betrayed us, that, I am con- 
vinced, would have been the whole story of the night. 
But we lay as men long practiced in the arts of 
silence, and not until the trees hid the men f rom our 
sight did Okyada stand up again and prepare to 
cross the gully. 


174 


DOWN TO THE SEA 


“ Go first, master,” he said ; “ here is the rope. 
Our friends, with the honorable captain, wait yonder 
above. We will bring them the good news.” 

Now I saw that, as he spoke, he had caught up a 
rope which had been dexterously fixed to a bowlder 
upon the opposite bank of the stream and allowed 
to trail in the water while he went to fetch me from 
the house. Fixing this as cleverly to the rock upon 
our side, he made a bridge by which any strong lad 
could have crossed with the pool as low as it then 
was ; and no sooner had he given the signal than I 
swung myself out and almost immediately found a 
footing upon the farther shore. His own passage, 
when first he crossed, must have been very perilous, 
I thought, and I could but imagine that he had 
thrown the rope over first and trusted to the grap- 
pling iron affixed to the end upon the garden side. 
This, however, was but a speculation. He crossed 
now as I had done, and together we cast the knot 
from the bowlder and drew the rope in. If all our 
acts were cool and collected, I set the fact down to 
the knowledge that we were prisoners of the valley 
no longer, and that the hills were before us. What 
matter the alarm now sounding through the gardens, 
the hoarse cry of voices, the blowing of whistles, the 
running to and fro of excited men.? More ominous 
by far was a second rifleshot, awakening crashing 
echoes in the mountains. This I believed one of my 
175 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


own yacht’s company had fired. Plainly, our men 
had either stumbled upon an ambush or fallen in some 
snare set upon the road we must follow. The truth 
of the issue could not but be momentous to us. 
Either we must find them prisoners or free men who 
stood in instant danger. There could be no moment 
of delay which was not hazardous, and we permitted 
none, directly our foothold had been secured and the 
rope drawn in. 

“ Did you come alone, Okyada ? ” I asked my 
servant presently. 

He dissented as he gathered in the coils of rope. 

“ The honorable Scotchman, he is waiting with 
the lantern, excellency.” 

I smiled, but did not offend his sense of that which 
was due to so great a person as Balaam, the Scotch 
boatswain. 

“Would it be far from here, Okyada?” 

“ That which your excellency could walk in a 
minute.” 

I said no more but followed him up the cliff side, 
scrambling and slipping like a boy upon a holiday 
jaunt and no less eager for the heights. To the 
darkness of the night and the quickness of our move- 
ments my faithful servant and I undoubtedly owed 
our lives. Remember that the valley now raised the 
cry of alarm from one end to the other. Whistles 
were blown, bells were rung, rifles fired wildly. That 
176 


DOWN TO THE SEA 

the bullets struck the rocks both above and below 
us, my ears told me unmistakably. Had we been an 
open mark moving in the clear light of day the sus- 
pense of this flight, the doubt and the hazard of it, 
had been easier to support. As it was, we went on 
blindly, our hands clasping the rough bowlders, our 
feet scattering the pebbles of the path, and con- 
scious through it all that a wild bullet might find 
a lucky billet, and grass either or both of us as 
though we had been hares in a tricky covert. Never 
was a man more thankful than I when a vast fissure 
in the cliff side appeared before us suddenly as a 
sanctuary door opened by an unknown friend’s hand. 
We passed behind it, and were instantly lost to the 
view of those in the valley. A profound silence of 
ultimate night enveloped us. There was no longer 
the need to pant and toil upon a crazy slope. Na- 
ture herself had here cut a path, and it appeared 
to lead into the very heart of the mountain. 

Now this path we followed, it may have been, for 
some two hundred yards in a direction parallel to 
that of the valley we had quitted. Its gentle decliv- 
ity brought us, in the end, to a low cavern of the 
rock, and here we found the boatswain, Balaam, sit- 
ting with his back to the cliff, smoking his pipe and 
guarding his ship’s lantern as calmly as though the 
scene had been Rotherhithe and the day a seaman’s 
Saturday. Hearing our approach, he bestirred 

177 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 

himself sufficiently to fend the light and to ask a 
question. 

“ Would it be the doctor and the wild man.? ” he 
asked; and without waiting for an answer he ran 
on : “I kenned your step, doctor, and said you were 
doing finely. There’s firing on the hills, sir, and 
ye would be wise not to bide. I’m no gleg at the 
running myself, but yon manny can take the licht, 
and I’ll make shift for myself. Aye, doctor, but if 
I had that butt of an ass the boys go daft upon ” 

I told him to show the way and not to talk, though 
I was glad enough to hear the good fellow’s voice. 
His name was Mackie, but a donkey ride at Cowes 
christened him Balaam irrevocably aboard the White 
Wings. Very methodically now, and with a seaman’s 
widening lurch, he set out to cross the cavern, 
Okyada and I upon his heels, and all the mesh of 
subterranean wonder about us. Here, for a truth, 
a man might have feared to go at all, lantern or no 
lantern in his hand; for the cavern revealed the 
source of the boiling springs, and there was one 
great chamber of the rock so dreadful to breathe 
in, so white with steam and boiling spray, that my 
own courage would have recoiled from it but for the 
example set me by these brave fellows. They, how- 
ever, held straight on without a word spoken and, 
coming to a clearer air presently, they indicated to 
me that we were approaching some place of danger 
178 


DOWN TO THE SEA 


and must now go with circumspection. Then I saw 
that the cavern roof narrowed rapidly, until we 
stood in a passage so regularly molded that the hand 
of man might have excavated it. And beyond this 
lay the Atlantic, plainly visible, though the night 
was moonless. Never did a glimpse of the open 
water cheer my heart so bravely ! Liberty, home, 
my friends! — a man is a man upon the sea, though 
every port but one be shut against him. And the 
breath of life is in his lungs, and the desire of life 
at his heart! Nay, who shall deny it? 

A sharp exclamation from the Scotchman, a 
sudden halt upon my servant’s part, quickly tem- 
pered these reflections upon liberty, and brought 
me back to a sense of our situation and its dangers. 
That which they had seen I now perceived to be 
nothing less than the figure of a man standing with 
his back to the rock, as though guarding the en- 
trance to the tunnel, and there keeping watch, not 
only upon the path, but upon another figure which 
lay prone in the fair way and was, I had no doubt 
whatever, a figure of the dead. To come instantly 
to the conclusion that the dead was one of our own, 
and that he had been killed by one of the rifles whose 
report we had so recently heard, I found natural 
enough. Not only was it my thought, but that of 
the others with me, and together we halted in the 
cavern and asked what we should do. To be sure, 

179 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


we were not to be affrighted by a single sentry, 
though he carried a rifle in his hand; but the cer- 
tainty that others would be within call, and that a 
single cry might bring them upon us, robbed us for 
the moment of any clear idea and held us prisoners 
of the cave. 

“ ’Twould have been the firing that I heard syne,” 
the boatswain whispered. 

I turned to Okyada and asked him what we should 
do. His own uncertainty was reflected in his atti- 
tude. He stood as still as a figure of marble. 

“ The master wait,” he said presently ; “ I think 
that I shall know if the master wait. Let the lan- 
tern be covered. I shall see by the darkness.” 

I told him that I forbade him to go, and that it 
was madness to suppose that the sentry would stand 
there alone. He did not hear me, disappearing im- 
mediately upon his words, and being lost to our view 
as completely as though the earth had opened and 
swallowed him up. I shall always say that a quicker, 
lighter-footed, more faithful fellow never lived nor 
earned the gratitude of an unemotional master. My 
own confidence in him found its best expression in 
the complacency with which I waited for his news. 
He would kill the sentry if need be — of that I felt 
sure ; and there was something horrible in the 
thought that a living man, whose figure we could 
see in the dim light beyond the cavern, stood upon 
180 


DOWN TO THE SEA 


the very brink of eternity and might have spoken 
his last word on earth. This reflection was my own. 
The stolid boatswain made nothing of it. He 
covered the lantern methodically and squatted back 
against the rock. 

“ Yon yellow laddie’s fine,” he whispered ; “ ’twould 
be as good as dead the man were. Has your honor 
such a thing as a bit of baccy upon ye? No; well, 
I’ll do well wanting it.” 

I smiled, but did not answer him. In truth, I had 
begun to find the minutes of waiting intolerable. 
What with the oppressive atmosphere of the tunnel, 
the heated, steam-laden air, and upon this the ghostly 
fascination of the specter at the cavern’s mouth, it 
came to me that my own strength might not carry 
me safely through the ordeal. What kept Okyada.?^ 
The sentry, on his part, did not appear to have 
moved since I had first seen him. There was not a 
sound in the cave save that of the hissing steam 
behind us. I could not discover the little figure of 
my servant, though I was looking from the darkness 
toward the light. Had he come to the conclusion 
that it was dangerous to go on.? This seemed pos- 
sible; and I had already taken a few steps toward 
the tunnel’s mouth when his figure suddenly emerged 
into the light, and, standing side by side with the 
sentry, he uttered that soft, purring whistle which 
called to us to come on. 


181 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


“ Yon’s one of our own, then,” the boatswain said, 
starting to his feet clumsily. 

Then some one has gone under, and he is keep- 
ing watch over him,” I replied ; “ God send that it 
is not one of our crew ! ” 

“ Amen to that, sir, though ’twere in a Christian 
man to say that we mawn all die when the day 
comes . . .” 

“ But not in this cursed island, or at the hands 
of a rascally Jew. The day will be an unlucky one 
if it comes here, my man. Put your best foot fore- 
most and say that it shall not.” 

My words were Greek to him, of course; and he 
answered me with a strange oath, and an expression 
of opinion upon Portuguese and others which was 
quite valueless. My own curiosity now turned, how- 
ever, to consider the odd fact that the sentry re- 
mained motionless, and that Okyada did not appear 
to have changed a single word with him. Who, then, 
was the man, and what kept him in that grotesque 
attitude? At a distance of fifty yards from the light 
I could not have told you — but at twenty yards, I 
understood. The wretched man was stone dead as 
his fellow who lay upon the path. A bullet from an 
unknown rifle had shot him through the heart as he 
stood in ambush waiting for me. So much I hazarded 
on the instant. The truth must be made known to 
me upon the yacht’s deck. 

182 


DOWN TO THE SEA 


I say the yacht ; and this is to tell you in a word 
that, coming out of the pit, we espied her, lying off 
the headland, a picture of life and light upon the 
still water. There below, upon the shore, stood the 
friends who had known so many anxieties, suffered 
upon my account such weary days of waiting, such 
long hours of strenuous labor, since I had left them. 
And now I had but to scramble down the rugged 
chff side and clasp their hands, and to tell them that 
all was well with me. But nine days away f rom them, 
I seemed to have lived a year apart, to have changed 
my very self, to be a new man coming into a living 
world of action from a grave of dreams. 

And what voice more earthly could I have heard 
than that of the unsurpassable Timothy McShanus, 
crying “ Me bhoy ! ” in tones that might have been 
heard upon the mountain-top 

None, indeed, and Timothy was the first to greet 
me; and I do believe there were tears of gladness in 
his eyes. 


183 


CHAPTER XIX 


IN THE MEANTIME 

We rowed to the yacht without an instant’s delay, 
and made known the good news to the crew. Their 
cheers must certainly have been heard by half the 
population of Villa da Porto. Quite convinced that 
the Jap would fetch me out of the trap, Captain 
Larry had ordered a supper to be prepared in the 
cabin, and hardly were we aboard when the corks 
were popping and the hot meats served. It was 
touching to witness the good fellows’ delight, ex- 
pressed in twenty ways as seamen will; this man by 
loud oaths, another by stupefied silence, a third by 
incoherent roaring, a fourth by the exclamatory 
desire that he might not find salvation. A man 
learns by misfortune by what measure of love his 
friends estimate him. In my case I learned it upon 
the deck of the White Wings, and have never for- 
gotten the lesson. 

Okyada, be sure, was the hero of the hour, and we 
had him down to the cabin immediately, and there 
pledged him in our saki that comes to us by way of 
Rheims. So much there was to tell upon both sides, 
184 


IN THE MEANTIME 


that neither side knew where to begin. Strangely 
elated myself, and suffering from that reaction of 
the nerves which sets a man walking upon air, I told 
them very briefly that I had been trapped to the 
hills, not by stratagem, but by force, and that if 
they had come an hour later, it would have been to 
a sepulchre. On their side, the strident voice of 
Timothy related twenty circumstances in a breath, 
and unfailingly began in the middle of his story and 
concluded with the beginning. 

“We presented ourselves to the authorities as ye 
ordered us to do, and, bad cess to them, they had no 
English at all to speak of. That was after me 
friend Larry had hunted the innkeeper round the 
town for to keep him humble in spirit. I went to 
the consul’s man, and says I : ‘ ’Tis an Englishman 
I am, upon the high seas, though of another nation 
ashore, and treat us civilly,’ says I, ‘ or be damned 
if I don’t wipe the floor with ye ! ’ ’Twas a mellow- 
faced party, and not to be made much of. The 
gendarmes were no better. There was wan av them 
that had a likeness to the Apostle John, but divil 
a word of a sane man’s gospel could I get out of 
the fellow. The tale went that ye had gone to St. 
Michaels, and ’twas by your own will that ye went. 
I made my compliments to the man who said it and 
told him he was a liar. Ean, my bhoy, your friend 
Fordibras and his friend, the Hebrew Jew, have 
185 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


bought this island body and soul. The very cables 
shake hands with them. We had to go to St. Michaels 
to send a bit of a message at all. . . 

I interrupted him sharply. 

“ Did you send the cables, then, Timothy ? ” 
“Would I be after not sending them? And me 
friend in his grave! They went the day before yes- 
terday. ’Twill be like new wine to Dr. Ean, says I, 
dead or alive. That took the ship to St. Michaels. 
Your fine fellow of a Jap, he was alone twenty hours 
in the hills. Man, he has the eyes, the ears, the feet 
of a serpent, and if he’s not a match for the Jew 
divil, may I never drink champagne again I ” 

I assented a little gravely. His news meant very 
much to me. You must know that, before I landed 
at Villa da Porto at all, I had entrusted to Timothy 
and to Captain Larry certain messages which were 
to be cabled to Europe in the gravest emergency 
only. These messages would tell Scotland Yard, 
they would make known to the Government and to 
the Admiralty and, even more important than these, 
to the great diamond houses, that which I knew of 
the Jew, Val Imroth, and of his doings upon the 
high seas. From this time forth, the warships of 
three nations would be scouring the ocean for such 
witnesses to my story as only the ocean could betray. 
If, from one point of view, I welcomed the thought, 
a shadow already lay upon my satisfaction. For if 
186 


IN THE MEANTIME 


Imroth were arrested, and with him the man known 
as General Fordibras, what, then, of Joan and her 
fortunes? These men, I believed, were capable of 
any infamy. They might well sacrifice the child to 
their desire for vengeance upon the man who had 
discovered them. They might even bring her to the 
bar of a court of justice, charged as an accomplice 
in those gigantic thefts they had committed so many 
years. To this end they had put my stolen jewels 
about her neck and so baited their devilish trap from 
the earliest hours. I am convinced now that their 
ultimate object was murder — when it could be safely 
done and when the whole of my story was known 
to them. 

“ You sent the cables two days ago, Timothy — 
and what then ? ” I asked him, not wishing to make 
too much of it before them. “ Have you had any 
reply from Murray?” 

Captain Larry intervened, pointing out that the 
cables had been sent from St. Michaels. 

“ We had to get the ship back, sir,” he said ; “ I 
was determined not to leave this place without you, 
if we waited here a twelvemonth. As for the authori- 
ties, it was as Mr. McShanus says, all blubber and 
fingers, and the general’s money hot in their pockets. 
When we got back from St. Michaels the little Jap 
came down to the harbor with his story. You were 
up in the hills, he said, and there was a spring to 
13 187 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


be dammed to get you out. He had done what he 
could, rolling the rocks into the water with his own 
hands until he could hardly stand upright from 
fatigue, but we sent a boat’s crew up last night and 
another to-night, and they played bowls with the 
stones like the good men that they are. I would 
have gone down with your servant, but he’d the con- 
ceit to go alone. It’s natural to such a man — no 
words, no fuss, just a coil of rope about his waist 
and a couple of revolvers in his hands. He took the 
Scotch boatswain because he says Scotchmen give 
nothing away. ‘ Honorable Englishman too much 
tongue,’ he says. I left it with him, because I be- 
lieved he spoke the straight truth. When he had 
gone up we posted a couple of men on the shore here 
and Mr. McShanus and I took our stand at the cliff’s 
head. We hadn’t been there more than half an hour 
when the first of the rifleshots were fired. We saw 
a number of men on the hillside, and they had fired 
a rifle for a signal, as we supposed, to others on the 
shore below. By and by we heard another rifleshot, 
but saw no one. A little while after that, you came 
down.” 

I told them that there were two men stone dead 
at the entrance to the tunnel, and this astonished 
them greatly. We could only surmise that the Jew’s 
sentinels had quarreled amongst themselves, and that 
the second of the shots had been fired by a wounded 
188 


IN THE MEANTIME 


man as his comrade emerged from the tunnel. Be 
it as it might, the hazardous nature of my escape 
became plainer every moment. It needed but Larry’s 
intimation that a steamer had left the island two 
hours ago, to tell me that my life had been saved 
almost as by a miracle. 

“ They have heard from Europe that the game is 
up and are running to another haven,” I said. 
“ There was no longer anything to be got from me, 
so out came their pistols. If they touch at any port 
north of Tangier, the police will lay hands upon 
them. That is not likely. My own opinion is that 
they are running for the great ship which we saw 
drifting out there in mid-Atlantic. If it is correct, 
the game becomes exciting. We can leave no mes- 
sage which can be safely delivered. Should the 
government send a cruiser, the officer of it will 
hardly set out for a blind man’s bluff. If we had 
coal enough ourselves ” 

Captain Larry interrupted me with scarce an 
apology. 

“ That was one of my reasons for going to St. 
Michaels, doctor. Mr. McShanus will tell you that 
we were lucky. We filled our bunkers — at a stiff 
price, but still we filled them. The yacht is ready to 
put to sea this instant if you so desire it.” 

His news both amazed and troubled me. I will 
not deny that I had been much tempted to stand by 
189 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


the island until I had definite news of Joan Fordibras 
and her safety. And now the clear call came to em- 
bark without an instant’s delay upon a quest which 
I owed both to myself and to humanity. Undoubt- 
edly I believed that the Jew had taken refuge upon 
the Diamond Ship. Behind that belief, there stood 
the black fear that he might have carried the child 
with him to be a hostage for himself and his fellow- 
rogues, and to stand between my justice and his 
punishment. This I knew to be possible. And if it 
were so, God help her amid that crew of cut-throats 
and rogues hidden from justice upon the unfre- 
quented waters of the southern ocean. But it might 
not be so, and pursuit of them might leave her to 
perils as great and insult as sure, in one or other of 
those criminal dens the rogues had built for them- 
selves in the cities of Europe. Surely was it a 
memorable hour, and manifest of destiny, when it 
found the yacht ready to put to sea without delay. 

“ Captain,” said I, “ do the men understand that 
this is a voyage from which none of us may return.^ ” 
“ They so understand it. Dr. Fabos.’* 

“ And do they consent willingly ? ” 

“ Turn back and you are upon the brink of a 
mutiny.” 

“ Then let us go, in God’s name,” said I, “ now, 
this very hour, let us do that duty to which we are 
called!” 


190 


CHAPTER XX 


THE SKIES BETKAY 

I SHALL carry you next to a scene in the southern 
Atlantic, to a day in the month following my escape 
from the Azores. The morning is a brilliant morning 
of torrid heat and splendid sunshine. The sea about 
us is a sea gleaming as a sheeted mirror of the purest 
silver; a vast, still, silent sea, with a cloudless hori- 
zon and a breath as of southern springtime. The 
yacht White Wings is changed but little since last 
you saw her at Villa da Porto. A close observer 
would mark the mast which carries her apparatus for 
Marconigrams ; she steams very slowly with a gentle 
purr of her engines that seems to soothe to sleep. 
There is a trim sailor on the lookout in her bows, 
and the second officer paces the bridge with the air 
of one who has long since ceased to enjoy an active 
occupation. Down amidships shouts of laughter 
claim my attention and turn my steps to the spot. 
The laughter is the laughter of honest seamen. The 
victim is my friend McShanus. 

He picked himself from the deck, brushed his 

191 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


clothes methodically, and told me that the game had 
been Jiu-Jitsu. 

“ ’Tis the little yellow devil again and me on my 
back like a turtle. Says he, ‘ The honorable Irish- 
man no puttee Okyada on the floor.’ Says I, ‘ Ye 
wisp of hay, I could knock ye down with my thumb.’ 
‘ The honorable Irishman try,’ says he. So I just 
put my hands upon his shoulders and gave him a bit 
of a push. Sons of Ireland! He dropped to the 
floor directly I touched him, and where is the relic 
of Timothy McShanus.? Sure, he caught me on the 
soles of his feet as I fell over him and shot me twenty 
yards — me, that has the blood of kings in me veins. 
He grassed me like a rabbit, sir, and there are 
those who laughed. ‘ Risu inepto res ineptior nulla 
est.’ Let them hear Martial, and be hanged to 
them!” 

I comforted Timothy with what words I could, 
and told him that they were bringing breakfast up 
to the deck. 

“ I want a few words with Larry and yourself,” 
said I, “ and hungry men are poor listeners. You 
have amused the crew, Timothy, and that is some- 
thing in these days. Be thankful to have played 
such a noble part and come and eat immediately. 
There is a capital fish curry, and the loaves are hot 
from the oven.” 

“ Faith,” he replied, “ if you make me as warm 

192 


THE SKIES BETRAY 


inside as I am out, ’twill be my clothes I am selling 
to the natives ! ” 

And then he asked almost pitifully: 

‘‘ ’Tis not to say that ye are going back to 
Europe, Ean, me bhoy ? ” 

“ The very thing in my mind, Timothy. I’ll tell 
you when we have had our ‘ parritch.’ We were 
not born to spend useful careers in the doldrums. 
Let us remember it after breakfast.” 

They had stretched a friendly awning over the aft 
deck, and hereunder we took our coffee and such 
food as a man cared to eat in such a temperature. 
When breakfast was done, and we had lighted the 
morning cigarette, delicious beyond words under 
such circumstances, I began to speak very frankly 
to Timothy and the captain of our present situation 
and the impossibility of continuing in it longer. 

“ The obstinate man is about to surrender to his 
friends,” I said. “We have now been running to 
and fro between Porto Grando and this Styx of an 
ocean for nearly a month. We have sailed halfway 
to the Brazils and back and discovered no more traces 
of the Diamond Ship than of the bark which Jason 
steered. When I consented to quit Villa da Porto 
I believed that the Jew, Valentine Imroth, would be 
taken afloat in the vessel we saw when first we re- 
turned from South Africa. I still believe it — but 
what is the good of belief when the ocean guards 
193 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


his secret and no eyes of ours can pry it out? He 
has escaped us, vanished in a cloud, and left us to 
gird at ourselves for the precious weeks we have lost. 
It may be that my deductions were wrong from the 
first; that he has fled to Paris or to America, and 
that the Diamond Ship is safely in some harbor 
where no civilized government will find her. In that 
case, our patrol is doubly futile. We are giving him 
time to perfect his plans, while we keep from the 
authorities that personal account of our investiga- 
tions to which they are entitled. These conclu- 
sions compel me most reluctantly to assent to your 
wishes and to return. We have failed upon the high 
seas. Let us now discover what the shore has to 
tell us.” 

They heard me with evident pleasure. Loyal as 
the men had been all along, these weary weeks of 
fruitless pursuit could not but tell their tale upon 
them. When we sailed away from Villa da Porto 
and raced to the southern Atlantic, it was in the 
minds of all of us that we should track down the 
Jew successfully in as many days as we had now de- 
voted weeks to a futile quest. All the arguments 
were upon my side. If the unknown vessel harbored 
Imroth’s rogues, and not them alone, but the fruits 
of their robberies, then was it plain that she must 
abide, at least for a time, in the situation where we 
had first discovered her. How could her communi- 
194 


THE SKIES BETRAY 


cation with the shore be established otherwise? Re- 
lief ships from Europe would be visiting her con- 
stantly. She must be provisioned, coaled, and kept 
aware of what was going on ashore. It seemed im- 
possible to me that she could shift her present cruis- 
ing ground or make any wide detour, until open 
pursuit compelled her to do so. These reasons had 
kept me doggedly to my quest of her. But they had 
failed to satisfy my comrades, and there were other 
impulses bidding me return. 

“ It is hard to give it up, doctor,” said Captain 
Larry, when I had done ; “ but, really, I think you 
are right. If the Government had sent out a ship to 
help us, the course would have been plain enough. 
As it is, we can do nothing, even if we track them 
down, and we might lose valuable lives in the en- 
deavor. Get back to Portsmouth, and leave it to 
the Government. That’s my word, and that, I think, 
is what Mr. McShanus thinks. We have done all we 
can, and a precious sight more than most would 
have done.” 

‘‘ Aye, and ’tis sense the man speaks ! ” added 
McShanus. “ The last man in the world would I 
be to cry off while the fox is running; but, Ean, 
me bhoy, he’s gone to ground as sure as blazes, and 
what for would ye flog a good horse to death? 
Here’s a fortune spent in coal, and a sea hot enough 
to fry haddocks, and divil of a sign as much as of 
195 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


a rowboat. The captain’s not behind me in know- 
ing of other people who have a claim upon your 
consideration. Go to Europe and learn of their 
welfare. There is one who may need ye sorely. 
And poor talk will it be that you’ll hear then if 
they tell you of ‘ what might have been ’ ! Go 
back to Europe, say I, and learn what has be- 
come of Joan Fordibras. ’Tis better work than 
roasting like a heathen nigger on this blazes of an 
ocean.” 

Well, we were agreed finally, as you will see. But 
the determination, none the less, had its counterpoise 
of depression which is not difficult to apologize for. 
It is in the British blood to persist even when failure 
seems assured and hope has long been abandoned. 
We had set out to find the Diamond Ship, and we 
had failed. That she was still afloat upon the south- 
ern Atlantic remained my unalterable conviction. It 
was even possible that Joan Fordibras was aboard 
her and not in Europe at all. A Council of Prudence 
said “ Return.” A Vanity of Conviction said “ Go 
on.” I had listened to the voice of the first named 
and surrendered to it. My comrades professed their 
joy in tones becoming a graveyard. The men heard 
of our determination with hands thrust deep into 
their pockets and mouths which emitted surly clouds 
of smoke. Rarely has a homeward-bound ship car- 
ried heavier hearts or a crew as silent. We were 

196 


THE SKIES BETRAY 


going to see the white cliffs of England again; 
but we were leaving the Diamond Ship for others 
to take. Everyone, professing to be glad, remained 
conscious of a personal defeat, of a rebuff which 
should not have been and would not have been 
but for a caprice of Fortune, unlooked for and 
unmerited. 

Upon my own part, there were conflicting hopes 
and desires which I could have confessed to none. 
It certainly had been a blow upon my vanity that 
the admiralty had sent no ship to my assistance and 
that Scotland Yard had been so long bestirring it- 
self. What could their delay mean but incredulity.? 
They doubted my story ; or if they did not doubt it, 
then they were wasting the precious weeks in vain 
inquiries at the consulates or formal exchange with 
the governments. In due season they would act, 
when the Diamond Ship had made her last voyage, 
perhaps, and the master criminal stood beyond their 
reach. Val Imroth indeed appeared to me to be the 
beginning and the end of this great conspiracy. 
The others were the puppets with which this king 
of rogues played a game daring beyond all imagi- 
nation of meaner minds. Let him be caught, and 
the house of his crimes would be shattered to ruins. 
He was the Alpha and the Omega, the brain and the 
soul of it. I concerned myself with no other; even 
little Joan must stand in peril until he were taken. 

197 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


My sense of duty forbade another course; I dare not 
turn aside. 

Many a night, and oft when the glorious Southern 
sky looked down upon us, and the sea was still, and 
nothing but the purring voice of the steamer’s en- 
gines could be heard, had I, alone upon the aft deck, 
asked myself of Joan’s fate, and of the future which 
awaited her. Had the rogues discovered her that 
night I fled from the Valley House, or had she been 
spirited away before Okyada came to me.? Was it 
a man’s part to have left the island immediately, or 
should I have lingered on in the hope of seeing her.? 
I know not to this day. If a man’s love make claim 
upon sentiment alone, and not upon common sense, 
then must I be found blameworthy. But if he is to 
use his brains as much in an affair of the heart as in 
that of the common things of the day, then was I 
justified a thousand times. Again and again did 
reason tell me that the Jew would hold her as a host- 
age for his own safety ; and that no harm would come 
to her until harm threatened him. Let me come face 
to face with him, and then I might fear for her. 
Alas, that reason cannot always be a comforter! 
There were blacker hours when I depicted her the 
prey of the ruffians of the island, the victim of her 
foster-father’s savage anger, alone and defenseless 
among them all, looking for my coming, and crying 
in her despair because I did not come. These were 
198 


THE SKIES BETRAY 


the blacker hours, I say. Let the long spell of 
waiting answer for them. They vanished like the 
mist when the good news came. 

We set the yacht upon a northward course, and 
lived through a morning of angry silence. Disdain- 
ing any lunch but a biscuit and a proud cigar, Tim- 
othy McShanus fell to reminiscences. I remember 
that he discussed the law of chances, reminding me 
of the American citizen who, being asked if he were 
a lucky man, replied that he once held four aces at 
a game of poker in Mexico City and only got shot 
in the leg. In a lachrymose mood, Timothy went on 
to say that he cared little whether he lived or died, 
but that he would give much to know what they were 
doing at the Goldsmith Club in London town. I did 
not answer him, for at that moment Captain Larry 
came scurrying along the deck, and one look at his 
face told me that he had news of moment. 

‘‘Well, Larry — and now.'^” 

“ There is a message, sir ” 

“ A message ? ” 

“ I don’t know what to say, sir, the telegraph in- 
struments are going like one o’clock. I thought you 
had better know immediately. There’s no one else 
aboard can read them.” 

My rough exclamation astonished them both. Our 
Marconi instruments had always been a pleasant 

199 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


source of mystery to the crew, and even the captain 
regarded them with some little awe. Hitherto we 
had hardly made use of them at all, exchanging, I 
think, but a couple of messages, one with a P. & O. 
steamer and another with a Union boat. And now 
they spoke for the third time, not from any ocean- 
going ship, I felt sure, nor from any station ashore, 
but a voice from the unknown, pregnant of good or 
ill, it might be, beyond any power of the imagination 
to say. Be it said that I went below with an anxiety, 
an excitement of the news, baffling words. Was it 
possible that this implement of steel and brass, of 
wire and filings and the simplest electric batteries, 
would reveal the truth so long concealed Even 
that I dared to hope. 

Now, the second officer watched the instrument 
when I entered the fore cabin, where we had set it up, 
and his curiosity was natural enough. I caught him 
in the act of trying to send some signal in reply, and 
arrested him with so rough a hand upon his own, that 
he must have believed me bereft suddenly of my senses. 

“ Good God ! ” I cried, “ not a word, man — not a 
word! This may be life or death to us! Leave it 
alone! — let them speak before we answer!” 

“ The instrument has been going for five minutes, 
sir. I know something of the Morse code, but I can’t 
make head or tail of it. She’s not a P. & O. ship, 
sir ” 


200 


THE SKIES BETRAY 


“ Neither a P. & O. nor any other letters in our 
alphabet, my lad. Go down now to Mr. Benson, the 
engineer, and tell him to give an eye to the batteries 
and the coherer. I will see to this.” 

He left me, and I took my stand before the imple- 
ment and watched it as a man watches a human face 
wherein he may read the story of his fate. A mes- 
sage was being ticked out there, but so faintly, so 
absolutely inaudible, that no skill of mine could write 
it down. Far away from us, it might be some hun- 
dreds of miles away, an unknown ship flashed its 
news over the lonely ocean. What ship, then, and 
whose were the voices.? Fascinated beyond expres- 
sion, I stood a long hour by the instrument, and 
could hear my own heart beating with the excitement 
of suspense. Would the instrument never speak 
plainly.? Should I risk a question in answer, sent 
out from our own lofty mast where all had been pre- 
pared for such a seeming miracle as this.? And if so, 
what question.? Had the Jew a password upon the 
high seas of which I was not the possessor.? I knew 
not what to think. One man alone upon the yacht 
might speak at such an hour — young Harry Aven- 
hill, who silently, willingly, and in gratitude had 
worked with our engineers during these long weeks 
of the vain pursuit. 

Harry came up to me from the depths of the 
engine room, his face a little pallid, but his eyes a 
201 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


clearer, healthier blue than when I had taken him 
from England and given him that second chance 
which humanity owes to every lad who sins. He told 
me frankly that there had been a password in use 
both in England and France. 

“We used to have to write the letter ‘ A ’ five 
times, running from the bottom, left hand, to the 
top, right hand, of a slip of paper, sir. That was 
when we wanted to get into any of our houses in 
London or Paris or Brussels. If we met a friend in 
the streets, it was the Romany tongue we spoke — 
‘ Kushto bokh ’ or ‘ mero pal ’ — or something of 
that sort; and when we had said it, one or other 
asked how old Five A’s was doing. Once I remem- 
ber the password was ‘ Fordibras.’ That was at 
Blois, when we robbed the house of the Count of 
Sens, who had just bought some of the empress’s 
emeralds. I never remember it being used any- 
where else but there.” 

I smiled, for the Jew’s perspicuity was as evident 
here as it had been in England and upon the island. 
The weaker man, Hubert Fordibras, he who by subtle 
cleverness and canting self-deception tried to believe 
himself innocent of these crimes — he would be the 
first prize of the police when detection came. This 
was obvious, as obvious as the lad’s inability to 
help me. 

“ It will not be ‘ Fordibras ’ upon the high seas, 

202 


THE SKIES BETRAY 


nor will a whole alphabet of ‘ A’s ’ help us, Harry,” 
said I as kindly as I could ; ‘‘ but that’s not your 
fault, my lad. Had you gone aboard with them, it 
would have been a different story. There is some 
password, I am sure, and it is used only for the ships. 
As it is, I must go wanting it — a hundred thousand 
pities, if pity is ever any use to anybody.” 

“ Then you never met one of their sailors. Dr. 
Fabos.? ” 

“No, I never — Good God! what am I saying! 
Never met one of their sailors Harry j what made 
you ask me that question ? ” 

“ You think of everything, sir. I made sure you 
would have been aboard one of their ships.” 

“ I have not been aboard one of their ships, but 
— well, we shall see. Who knows, Harry, but that 
you were to be the destiny of this. Go up to Captain 
Larry and tell him that I may have news both for 
him and for Mr. Benson. It may not be Europe, 
after all.” 

He went away as quietly as he had come, and left 
me to the instruments. That which was in my mind 
I would share with none. Say that it was an idea 
which might win or lose all by a word and you will 
come near to its discovery. My purpose was to send 
by wireless telegraphy such a message to the Dia- 
mond Ship as would lead us to the discovery both 
of her present situation and her ultimate destination. 
14 203 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 

To do so, I needed a password to the confidence of 
her commander. That password I believed that I 
possessed. It had been given to me years gone when 
a dead sailor had been washed ashore upon Palling 
Beach and one of the most famous diamonds in 
Europe had been found upon his body. Judge of 
my excitement when I sat down to put this idea to 
the proof! There before me was the instrument, 
still ticking a message I could not decipher. I sat 
down before our own keyboard and deliberately 
rapped out the words, “ Captain Three Fingers.” 
Again and again I sent the words speeding across 
lonely seas. “ Captain Three Fingers ” — that and 
nothing more. As a spirit winging a human 
thought, it went to the unknown, over the silent 
waters, a tremor of the air, a voice of doom, an aw- 
ful, mysterious power of words pregnant of discov- 
ery or wholly impotent in the mocking ether. 

An hour passed and found me still alone. There 
had been no response to my message, no further 
agitation of the receiver whose message baffled me. 
Faithful to my wish, neither Larry nor McShanus 
had interrupted me. I could hear, as a distant sound, 
the murmur of gentle seas beating upon our bows. 
The purr of our engines was as that of a living, 
sentient entity, awake to the intervals of action. My 
fingers had grown weary of repeating those idle 
204 


THE SKIES BETRAY 


words. I sat back in my chair in a bitterness of 
spirit foreign to me, and reflected upon the fatuity 
of impulse and the mockery of all human deduction. 
If there were a password to the deck of the Diamond 
Ship, I lacked it. My hasty conclusions had met 
with their just fate. The men aboard the distant 
vessel had taken alarm and signalled to me no more. 
What would it profit them to continue this vain em- 
ployment.? Answer, that obstinacy prompted me. 
Doggedly, persistently, reason would repeat that I 
was right. The words were the only words. I could 
imagine no others. In mockery almost, I changed 
my key and, to prove myself right, a hundred times 
I tapped out the word “ Fordibras ” upon the ready 
instrument. Once, twice, thrice — thus it went speed- 
ing into the aerial wastes, losing itself under the blue 
heavens, a delusion upon a delusion, the mocking jest 
of a man who has no resource but jest. And how 
are wonder and the sport of chance to be expressed 
when I say that the word was answered, immediately, 
clearly, beyond all question, in a message from the 
Diamond Ship and from those who commanded her.? 

I sat as one transfixed, my hands trembling with 
excitement, my ears intent as though open to the 
story of a miracle. Plain as the talk of a friend at 
my side came that memorable answer, “ How is old 
Five A’s doing.? ” Leaping to the lad Harry’s 
story, I answered them in the Romany tongue, the 
W5 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


first, perhaps, that any student of crime should be- 
gin to learn. And now it became no longer a ques- 
tion of the word. Their anxiety mastered them. 
They were telling me their secrets across the waste, 
those secrets I would have paid half my fortune 
to learn. 

“ We lie at 9° 15" by 33° 15' 15". Where are 
you.?” 

I flashed back a false reply, two degrees northward 
of our true situation. Quick as the instrument would 
transmit the words I added this intelligence: 

“ Every port watched. Fabos in Paris ; white 
ensign off St. Michaels; station safe; wait, coming.” 

Their reply was the impatient question : “ Are 
you Ross or Sycamore ? ” 

I took it to mean that there were two ships for 
which they waited, and that the captains thereof 
were named respectively Ross and Sycamore. At a 
hazard I chose the flrst name, and waited for them 
to go on. Never in all this world did the flashing 
voice of electricity mean so much to mortal man. 

“We are short of coal and water,” the tidings 
went ; “ hurry, for God’s sake, or we are driven 
into Rio ! ” 

To this, my hands hot with the fever of discovery, 
I rejoined: 

“ Rio known — keep the seas — we reach you to- 
morrow.” 


206 


THE SKIES BETRAY 


And then for a long while there was silence. I 
imagined that unknown crew debating my words as 
though they had been a message of their salvation. 
A relief ship was coming out to them. They were 
saved from the perils of the shore and that more 
terrible peril of thirst. When the machine next 
ticked out its unconscious confession, it was to bid 
me hasten, for God’s sake! 

‘‘ I am Valentine Imroth. What has kept you 
ashore.^ ” 

“ The police and Fabos.” 

“ Then Fordibras is a traitor.” 

“ You have his daughter with you.f* ” 

‘‘Is that known in Europe?” 

“ It is suspected.” 

“ By the mouth of Fabos. He has received my 
message. Has Sycamore sailed? ” 

“ He is two days behind me.” 

“ WTiat coal has he aboard ? ” 

I sat back from the instrument and answered not 
a word. Be it said that while I had already convinced 
myself that this mysterious, unknown Diamond Ship 
was in reality a vessel hauled to, as it were, perma- 
nently in mid-Atlantic, the corollary of attendant 
steamers needed no demonstration. Regularly from 
Europe or America, I imagined, tenders of con- 
siderable size set out to water, provision, and to coal 
the great receiving-hulk wherein the Jew hid his 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


booty and harbored his outcasts. There would be a 
great going to and fro of rascals, of course, relief 
crews, and a very system of changing duties. But 
the great ship would never make the shore unless 
driven thereto by ultimate necessity ; and the very 
fact of those equatorial latitudes being chosen for 
her cruising ground, latitudes of profound calm and 
void of winds, contributed to the probability of my 
surmise. So much was plain; but the moment the 
arch-rogue asked me what coal the tender carried, 
then, instantly, I realized my peril and quitted the 
instrument abruptly. Of the tender I knew nothing. 
A false word might undo all that accident had done 
for me so nobly. I had wisdom enough to draw back 
from it. 

“ They will set it down either to prudence or a bad 
receiver,” I said to myself as I quitted the cabin, in 
a greater state of mental agitation than I had known 
since I sailed from England. “ It could not be better. 
Let them flash what news they will. I have their story, 
and to-morrow Europe shall have it, too,” I said. 

Larry was on the quarter-deck when I went aft, 
and Timothy McShanus stood at his side. I was 
astonished to hear that it was already six o’clock and 
to see the sun setting. Together, then, my best 
of friends remarked on the pallor of my face and 
asked me what, in Heaven’s name, had kept me so 
long in the cabin. 


208 


THE SKIES BETRAY 


“ Gentlemen,” I said, “ the Diamond Ship is some 
hundred-odd miles from us as we lie, and Joan Fordi- 
bras and the Jew are aboard her. Captain Larry, 
will you give the necessary orders.? — and, Timothy, 
for God’s sake, send me up a whisky and soda and 
the longest cigar on the yacht. I am going to think, 
man — I am going to think ! ” 

So I turned upon my heel and left him. The men’s 
cheers resounded through the ship as I entered my 
cabin. Ah, the brave fellows! Toward what harbor 
had they turned the yacht’s head so resolutely.? I 
asked myself as I listened to them. Might it not 
be to a haven of death, to a grave in that placid 
ocean upon which we now raced as though Eldorado 
lay beyond our dim horizon.? 

I knew not, indeed. For upon me also the fever 
of pursuit had again laid its burning hand, and 
though death had stood at our helm, no voice of life 
might call me back. 


209 


CHAPTER XXI 


A PILLAR OF LIGHT 

Merry, our little cockney cook (the aproned 
humbug pretends to be a Frenchman), swore that 
night by the shade of Careme that if ever he made 
a ragout a la t ruffe a Perigord again for a master 
who dined oflp whisky and soda and a cigar, ‘‘ ’e 
’oped he would be ’ung on a pot-’ook.” I solaced 
the good fellow by ordering supper at eleven o’clock 
and inviting both Larry and Benson, our engineer, 
to my table. Needless to say that we had but one 
topic of conversation. Hardly were the glasses filled 
when I began to put my laconic questions, and wrote 
upon the slip of note at my side, the answers to them. 

“ For how many days have you coal, Mr. Benson.? ” 

“ That depends how far and how fast you steam, 
sir.” 

“ Suppose that we are lying drifting here in these 
calms. There is no great consumption of coal then ? ” 

“ No, sir; but if you wish steam kept up against 
a run, that empties your bunkers.” 

“ It will depend upon what the other people 

^10 


can 


A PILLAR OF LIGHT 


do, Benson. They may be in the same position as 
we are. If our friends at home believe our story, 
I don’t suppose there will be much coal going for 
Val Imroth or any of his company. Of course, he 
may have other resources. He would not rely upon 
relief ships from Europe altogether. The Ameri- 
can governments are not likely to concern themselves 
overmuch in the matter. Their newspapers will make 
as much of the matter as the police will make little. 
Incredulity we must expect. If we are believed any- 
where, it will be by the men who lose hundreds of 
thousands of pounds every year in South Africa. 
That’s the keynote to this mystery. The Jew may 
have a hundred agents stealing diamonds for him at 
Kimberley. He hides the men and the booty on this 
great moored ship until the danger has passed. A 
hint to those pleasant people, the magnates of Park 
Lane, will supply money enough for any purpose. I 
doubt their sense, however. They will leave the 
protection of their so-called interests to other people, 
as they have always done. We really need not con- 
sider them in the matter.” 

“ ’Tis yourself and the young lady ye have 
to think of — no others,” interrupted Timothy ; 
“ phwat the divil is Park Lane to you or to me or to 
any decent man.? Do we care whether their dia- 
monds are safe or stolen.? Not a tinker’s curse, me 
bhoy. If ye hunt the Jew down, ’tis for your van- 
211 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


ity’s sake, and not for the good of humanity at all. 
Faith, I’d be a fool to tell ye ’tis not so! Ye want 
the glory of this, and ye want the girl on top of the 
glory. Let’s be plain with each other, and we’ll get 
on the faster.” 

“ Timothy,” I said, ‘‘ you are a philosopher. We 
won’t quarrel about it. The glory of it is nothing 
to you, and if it were in your power you’d return 
to Europe by the first steamer willing to carry you 
there. Let us agree to that.” 

“ Be d d to it I I agree to nothing of the 

sort.” 

“ Ah, then, here is Madame Vanity sheltered also 
in another human bosom! Say no more. If I am 
serious, it is to tell you that vanity has been less 
to me in all this time than the safety of Joan Fordi- 
bras and her freedom. Of that I account myself the 
guardian. She is on board the Diamond Ship — re- 
flect among what a company of villains, thieves, and 
assassins ! Captain, Timothy, I have not the courage 
to tell myself what may befall her. Perhaps it would 
be better if she did not live to speak of it. You know 
what it may be. You must try to help me where my 
judgment fails.” 

“To the last man on the ship,” said Captain Larry 
very solemnly. 

Timothy did not reply. Emotional as all Irish- 
men are, he heard me in a silence which spoke very 
212 


A PILLAR OF LIGHT 


eloquently of his affection. For my own part, I am 
no lover of public sentiment. My friends under- 
stood what Joan’s safety meant to me, and that was 
sufficient. 

“We should sight the ship after eight bells,” said 
I, diverting the subject abruptly, “ and then our 
task begins. I am hoping to outwit them, and to 
force a surrender by sheer bluff. Very possibly it 
will fail. We may even lose the yacht in the venture. 
I can promise nothing save this — that while I live 
I will hunt the Jew, afloat or ashore Let us drink 
to that, gentlemen, a bumper. It may be the last 
occasion we shall find for some days to come.” 

We filled our glasses and drank the toast. A will- 
ing steward carried my orders for a double dose of 
grog for the men, and an echo of the chantey they 
lifted, came down to us as we sat. It was now nearly 
midnight, and yet no one thought of bed. An ex- 
citement which forbade words kept us there, talking 
of commonplace affairs. When the second officer 
informed me exactly at eight bells that the telegraph 
was working again and very clearly, I heard him al- 
most with indifference. For the moment it might 
be dangerous to send any message across the waste 
of waters. There could be no further talk exchanged 
between the Jew and myself until I had definitely 
declared myself. 

“ They would shift their position, captain. We 

21S 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


must hold them to it and track them down. You 
say that we should sight them at two bells in the 
middle watch. I’ll step down and hear what they 
have to say, but unless it is vital, I shall not answer 
them.” 

I found the instrument tapping sharply, as the 
second officer had said. The words spelled out 
“ Colin Ross,” the name of the officer upon one of 
their relief ships, as they had already informed me. 
Repeated again and again, it gave me in the end an 
idea I was quick to act upon. They must think the 
relief steamer broken down, I said. Such should be 
the first card I had to play. 

“ Fordibras,” I signalled — and again — “ Fordi- 
bras,” and then upon it the simple words — “ Pro- 
peller shaft broken — all hands at work — repaired 
to-morrow — cable eight bells.” 

I say that I repeated the message, as one almost 
invariably is called upon to do when the instrument 
is wireless and no receivers have been tuned to a 
scheme. A little to my astonishment, there was no 
reply whatever. As I had ceased to speak to the 
Diamond Ship yesterday, so she had ceased to speak 
to me to-night. A renewal of the call earned no 
better reward. I fell to the conclusion that the news 
had been of sufficient import to send the immediate 
receiver headlong to the captain of the vessel, and 
that he would return me an answer anon. So half 
214 


A PILLAR OF LIGHT 


an hour passed and found me still waiting. It must 
have been nearly one o’clock by this time. I recol- 
lect that it was at seventeen minutes past one pre- 
cisely that our forward lookout discerned the lights 
of the Diamond Ship upon a far horizon and 
that Captain Larry burst in upon me with his splen- 
did news. Now, surely, had I no further need of 
messages. You may judge how I followed him to 
the deck to feed my eyes upon the spectacle. 

“ Have you just seen her, Larry.? ” 

“ This very instant, doctor. I could not have 
fallen down the stairs quicker.” 

Does McShanus know ? ” 

“ He’s shaking all over, like a man with an ague. 
I sent him to the cabin for brandy.” 

‘‘ It could be no other ship, Larry ? ” 

‘‘ How could it be, sir.? This is no course for any- 
where. She’s what we’re after, right enough.” 

“Does she lie far off, Larry.?” 

“ I can’t say, sir. You shall judge for yourself.” 

I went up upon the bridge with him for a better 
view, and immediately discerned the spectacle which 
had so excited him. Many miles away, as I judged, 
upon our port bow, a light flashed out brilliantly 
above a sleeping ocean — a blinking, hovering, mad- 
cap light, now turning its glowing face to a fleecy 
sky, now making lakes of golden Are upon the glassy 
water, now revolving as in some mighty, omnivorous 
215 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


circle which should embrace all things near and far 
and reveal their presence to watching eyes. Plainly 
directed by a skillful hand, I said that a trained 
officer worked the lantern as they worked it on board 
a man-of-war; but as though to deny that the un- 
known ship were a man-of-war, the monster search- 
light began anon to answer as though to a dancing, 
drunken measure of some hand that wearied of duty 
and made a jest of it. Not for one minute would 
that have been permitted upon the deck of a battle- 
ship. I could doubt no longer that Captain Larry 
spoke the truth. 

“We are carrying no lights ourselves, Larry.?” 
I exclaimed, and added, apologetically, “ That goes 
without saying.” 

“ It goes without saying, doctor. I ordered lights 
out at eight bells.” 

“We shall show a haze of red light above our 
funnels.” 

“ Not with those guards to port Mr. Benson has 
fitted up .? ” 

“ Do you think we dare run up to her, Larry ? ” 

“ There would be little risk when they get tired 
of their fireworks, doctor.” 

“ We’ll do it, Larry. Don’t forget Joan Fordi- 
bras is aboard there. I would give much for one 
spoken word that she could understand.” 

He nodded significantly, and rang doAvn his orders 

216 


A PILLAR OF LIGHT 


to the engine room. I perceived that McShanus had 
come up from the saloon ; he did not speak to me, as 
he told me afterwards, under the ridiculous appre- 
hension which comes to men in danger that any 
speech above a whisper is a peril. The men them- 
selves were all grouped about the fo’castle as children 
for a stage play to be given on the water. We car- 
ried no lights; from stern to stern of the ship not 
so much as a single electric lamp broke in upon the 
darkness. The clash of our engines remained the 
only sound. I turned to Timothy and astonished 
him by my greeting. 

“ A steady hand now — is it that, Timothy ? ” 

“ Take a grip of it yourself, me bhoy.” 

‘‘ It certainly is not the cold hand of the poets. 
Would it help with the machine guns if need be, 
Timothy.? ” 

‘‘ Whist, could it not ! Are ye not speaking over 
loud, doctor, me bhoy.? ” 

‘‘ Oh, come, you think they can hear us five miles 
away, Timothy.? Shout, if you like, old boy. I hope 
to God there will be silence enough by and by. We 
are going to have a look at them, Timothy. ’Tis to 
learn the color of their coats, as you would say.” 

“Ye are not going within shot of their guns.?” 

“ Timothy,” I said, speaking now in that low tone 
he had desired, “ I am going to learn how it fares 
with Joan Fordibras.” 


217 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


“ Ah, bad cess to it, when a woman holds the lan- 
tern, there goes Jack the Giant-killer. ’Twill help 
her to be sunk, Ean.” 

“ I do not think they will sink us, Timothy.” 

“ God be good to me, I’m no better than a coward 
this night. What was it I said ? ” 

“ That you were quite of my opinion, Timothy.” 
We laughed together, and then fell to silence. Fit- 
fully now in the dark heavens there could be seen the 
glimmer of the searchlight’s open lantern. The sea 
about us was a sea of night, very black and awesome 
and still. We were a thing of darkness, rushing on- 
ward with spinning bows and throbbing turbines and 
furnaces at a white heat — a stealthy enemy creeping 
upon our prey through the immense shadows which 
darkened the face of the resting waters. No man 
aboard disguised from himself the risk we were 
taking. Let the Diamond Ship catch us in the path 
of her mighty beam of radiant light and we were in- 
stantly discovered. A single shell from her modern 
guns would destroy us utterly. There could be no 
greater triumph for the Jew than that. We alone 
carried the whole story of his secret. What, then, 
would he not give to destroy us.^^ 

So we crept on, mile by mile. Every eye aboard 
the White Wings watched that resting searchlight as 
though it had been endowed with telepathic powers, 
and would of itself warn the rogue’s crew. I don’t 
218 


A PILLAR OF LIGHT 


think we believed for an instant in the good fortune 
which followed us. It seemed incredible that they 
should not keep a better lookout, and yet the fact 
so stands. The resting beam of light in the sky was 
our goal. We drew upon it moment by moment as 
to some gate of destiny which should tell a story 
fruitful beyond any we had heard. And still the 
Diamond Ship did not awake. 

I heard Captain Larry give an order down the 
tube, and realized that the yacht had come to a stand. 
We were then but a half a mile from the great vessel 
herself, and could in reason dare to draw no nearer. 
The rest lay with the whim of the night. We knew 
not, could not imagine the strange fortune which 
awaited us. 


15 


S19 


CHAPTER XXII 


THE CRIMSON ROCKET 

You are to imagine a still sea and a great four- 
masted sailing ship drifting upon it at the hazard 
of a summer breeze. The night is intensely dark, 
and the sky gives veins of mackerel cloud upon a 
field of slatey blue. Far away, a ring of silver irides- 
cence low down upon an open horizon suggests that 
great inverted bowl within which all ships are ever 
prisoned from the first day of their sailing to the 
last. The monster vessel herself is brilliantly lighted 
from stern to stern. Faintly over the water there 
comes to us a sound of bibulous song and hilarity. 
My quick ear catches the note of a piccolo, and upon 
that of a man’s voice singing not untunefully. I say 
that there is no discipline whatever upon such a deck 
— no thought of danger, no fear of discovery. The 
pillar of light has become a halting mockery. Much 
is to be dared, much to be won, upon such a night. 

Consider ” — and this I put to Captain Larry — 
“ they have guns, but who has trained their gunners ? 
Let them fall to artillery practice, and it is two to 
220 


THE CRIMSON ROCKET 


one they blow up the ship. Even one of Percy 
Scott’s miracles would make no certainty of such 
a yacht as this on such a night. We ought to 
risk it, captain — we ought to risk it for a woman’s 
sake ! ” 

Larry was a brave enough man, but like all his 
race a very prudent one. 

“ If you wish it, sir — but there are the men to 
think of. Don’t forget the wives and children at 
home, sir.” 

“ Did the men so put it, Larry ? ” 

‘‘ Bless you, no, sir ; they’d swim aboard there if I 
gave the word ! ” 

I reflected upon it a little while, and it seemed to 
me that Larry must be right. Accustomed to work 
alone and to be the arbiter of all risks, I had for 
the instant forgotten my responsibilities toward 
those who served me so well. By no necessity to be 
named, by no duty to humanity or to myself, could 
I ask these honest fellows to go farther with me. 
Even where we lay, a lucky shot might destroy us. 
Half a dozen times in as many minutes my heart was 
in my mouth as the great beam of light marked an- 
other point in the heavens or momentarily disap- 
peared. Let them cast its effulgent beams again 
upon the waste of waters, and assuredly were we dis- 
covered. Not alone in the reflection, I could read it 
also upon the set faces of my friends. A telepathic 
221 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 

sense of danger held us mutually entranced. The 
villains over yonder had made an end of their music. 
Instinct said they will search the seas again, and that 
must be the end of it. 

It is futile, in my opinion, for any writer to at- 
tempt to describe the particular sensations, either of 
exhilaration or of terror, which come to him in mo- 
ments of great peril. Should he set down the truth, 
he is named either a boaster or a liar; if he would 
evade the truth, his story can be but commonplace. 
To a close friend I would say that when the looked- 
for event happened, when the rogues at last turned 
their searchlight upon the waves again, I had no 
thought at all of the consequences of discovery, but 
only a fascinating curiosity of the eyes which fol- 
lowed the beam wonderingly, and stood amazed when 
it passed over us. Vast, monstrous, blazing, the fear- 
ful eye of light focused itself upon us for a terrible 
instant, and then swept the whole circle of the seas 
with its blinding beams. Twice, thrice, it went thus 
— hearts standing still almost as it approached us, 
leaping again as it passed onward. Then, as sur- 
prisingly, it remained fixed upon the farther side of 
the Diamond Ship ; and in the same instant, far away 
to northwest, a crimson rocket cleaved the black 
darkness of the night, and a shower of gold-red balls 
burst hoveringly above the desert waters. 

“ What do you make of that, Larry ? ” 


THE CRIMSON ROCKET 


“ Not a signal from any common ship, sir. We 
don’t use that kind of rocket.” 

“ ’Tis the fourth of July, bedad, or the Crystal 
Palace that’s flying ! ” cried Timothy. 

“ Larry,” said I, ‘‘ that’s one of their patrols. I 
rather fancy a man of the name of Colin Ross is 
aboard her. If so, the Jew is to receive some 
shocks.” 

“ I wish to Heaven they came by way of a sea- 
man’s arm, sir. Yes, it’s as you say. Yon is a 
steamer, and here goes the answering rocket.” 

He pointed to the sky above the Diamond Ship, 
ablaze with a spray of vivid green radiance, the an- 
swering signal to the distant ship. The nature of 
our own escape now became quite clear to me. The 
lookouts over yonder had espied the lights of the 
relief steamer, and had used the searchlight to signal 
her. The great arcs, the circling beams, were but 
those prehminary movements with which every opera- 
tor tries the lantern he is about to use. No eye had 
followed their aureole, I made sure. We had escaped 
observation, simply because every man aboard yonder 
vessel had been looking at the incoming steamer, 
bearing from Europe news which might be of such 
moment. 

“ Larry,” I said, jumping at the idea of it, ‘‘ it’s 
now or never. Let her go while they are at the par- 
ley. I’ll stake my life on it there is no lookout to 
22S 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


starboard. Let’s have a look at them when they least 
expect us.” 

“ Do you mean to say, sir, that you’ll risk it ? ” 
“ There is no risk, Larry — if you don’t delay.” 

“ I do believe you are right, sir. Here’s for it 
anyway, and luck go with us ! ” 

He rang down the order to the engine room and 
we raced straight ahead, not a man uttering a sound, 
not a light showing aboard us. Holding on in de- 
fiance of prudence and responsibility, we drove the 
yacht into the very shadows of the great unknown 
ship we had tracked so far. To say that we stood 
within an ace of destruction would be to treat of 
our circumstances lightly. A word amiss might have 
destroyed us so utterly that not a man of us all could 
have told the tale. There, towering above us, was 
the great hull of this floating mystery, the massive 
outline of a vessel built upon the lines of an Atlantic 
steamer, yet carrying four masts and a funnel so 
low that one might look twice to detect it at all. 
Flashing lights from stern to stern, we could almost 
count the men upon the decks of this phantom of 
the high seas — men wearing all varieties of dress, 
some the garb of fashion, some that of ordinary 
workmen, a few in the uniform of sailors. And what 
a hive of activity those decks appeared to be ! How 
the fellows were running to and fro, changing their 
positions every moment, taking their stands now in 
224 


THE CRIMSON ROCKET 


the shrouds, now high upon the fo’castle, an agitated, 
expectant throng, turning, as it were, one face to 
the steamer which came to relieve them, and by which 
news of their safety or their danger might come. 
Their very interest, however, became our confidence. 
Taking my place with the forward lookout, I conned 
every feature of the great ship and impressed the 
facts of it upon my memory. No thought of peril 
troubled me now. 

I scanned the decks, I say, as quietly as one sur- 
veys* a ship that must be docked, noted the black 
shapes of the veiled guns, the wretched, haphazard 
armament amidships, the unsuitability of the great 
hull to the purposes now indicated, the seeming ab- 
sence of all order and method and even leadership 
upon its decks. This monstrous, floating haven of 
crime and horror — no sailor had chosen it for its 
present purpose I made sure. In a lighter moment 
I could say that it had once been a second-class 
cruiser, and now stood for a witness to an age which 
added raking masts to its warships and eyed askance 
the supremacy of steam. The Jew, it might be, had 
purchased his ship from a government that had no 
further use for it. He had gone to Chili or the Ar- 
gentine — a second thought said to Italy, for this 
vessel had more than a smack of Italian design and 
practice as we knew it in the last days of canvas and 
the first of steel. And he had bought this relic at his 
225 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


own price, had maintained its engines, added new 
masts for disguise, and so adapted it to that master 
scheme whose aims rose so far above this evidence 
of realization. All this, I say, my swift survey 
showed me. But the supreme question it did not 
answer. There were women to be discerned upon 
the deck of the ship ; but not the figure of J oan 
Fordibras. Of her the night had no news to give 
me. 

We lay at this time, I suppose, some two hundred 
yards from the great ship, a little astern of her, and 
ready, need it be said, to bound away into the dark- 
ness should the need arise. Our daring is neither to 
be set down to courage nor foolhardiness. It was 
plain that every man on board Valentine Imroth’s 
sanctuary had eyes but for the approaching steamer, 
ears but for the news it should carry. Absolutely 
convinced of our safety, we watched the spectacle 
with that air of assurance and self-content which 
any secret agent of a good cause may assume at the 
moment of his triumph. My own doubt and trouble 
could hardly be shared by the honest fellows about 
me; or if it were shared, then had they the good 
taste to make light of it. Indeed, they were upon 
the point of persuading me that if it were Joan 
Fordibras I had come out to seek, then the sooner 
I get me back to Europe the better. 

“ There’s no J oan upon yonder ship,” said old 

S26 


THE CRIMSON ROCKET 


Timothy in a big whisper ; “ I’d as soon look to find 
the Queen of Sheba there.” 

‘‘ Indeed, sir,” added Larry kindly, “ I do think 
Mr. McShanus is right. They’d never take a lady 
among that riff-raff. I don’t see how it would serve 
them, anyway. We must credit General Fordibras 
with some feelings, if the other has none. He’s 
taken Miss Joan to Europe, be sure of it.” 

I could make no answer, for my reasoned opinion 
had that obstinate dogmatism which must attend the 
logical idea if logic be of any worth at all. It were 
better, I thought, not to discuss it, and for that 
matter, there were events enough to take a man’s 
mind from the graver doubts. The relief steamer 
had by now drawn so near to the other that loud 
cheers were raised between them, boats put off in 
haste from the Diamond Ship, and boats from the 
newcomer. We heard greetings exchanged — in 
French, in German, in Italian. Instantly almost, a 
great business of making ready to unload a cargo 
out there in mid- Atlantic began. I perceived that 
the two ships were to be caught together by immense 
grapplings, and so held while the affair of discharg- 
ing was done. Of what the patrol’s cargo might be, 
I could only surmise. She would bring the invaluable 
coal, of course — else could not the water be distilled 
aboard the rogue — coal and food and news and, it 
might be, new ruffians who had escaped the justice 
227 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


of Europe or Africa. This, I say, was a surmise. 
The immediate test of it my eyes carried no further; 
for chancing to look again at hazard toward the 
greater vessel, I detected a solitary figure at the 
taffrail and instantly recognized my little Joan, 
standing apart from all that ruffian crew, and look- 
ing wistfully toward that very place where White 
Wings lay in ambush on the waters. 

And then I knew that I had done well to dare this 
voyage, and that, cost what it might in blood or 
treasure, I would save this child from the Jew and 
that which he had prepared for her. 


228 


CHAPTER XXIII 


WE DEFY THE ROGUES 

It is a human experience, I believe, that men’s 
faculties often serve them best in moments of grave 
danger. In my own case, to be sure (but this may 
be a habit of the mind), I am often mastered by a 
strange lethargy during the hours of a common day. 
Events have then no other than a dreamy signifi- 
cance for me. I do not set them in a profitable se- 
quence, or take other than a general and an indiffer- 
ent survey of that which is going on about me. But 
let a crisis of actual peril arrive, and my mind is all 
awake, its judgment swift, its analysis rarely mis- 
taken. Such a moment came to me upon the deck 
of the White Wings when I discovered my little Joan 
at the taffrail of the Diamond Ship, and knew that 
my errand had not been in vain. Instantly I de- 
tected the precise nature of the risk we ran, and the 
causes which contributed to it. The situation, 
hitherto vague and objectless, became as plain as 
the simplest sum in a child’s arithmetic book. 

‘‘ Larry,” I said to the captain, “ they will dis- 

229 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


cover our presence inside ten minutes, and we shall 
learn how they can shoot. This is too easy a target 
for my comfort. Let us back out while we have the 
chance.” 

Captain Larry, as intent upon the spectacle of the 
strange ships as any cabin boy, turned about quickly 
as a man roused up from a dream. 

“ I was thinking of it before the relief came along- 
side,” said he ; “ the steam blast may give us away any 
minute, doctor. We lie right under their stern, how- 
ever, and that is something. So long as they don’t 
send their limelight whizzing ” 

“ That is exactly what they are about to do, 
captain. They are going to look round for the 
unknown ship which has been sending them false 
messages by Marconigram. Listen with me and you 
may follow the story. That is the first chapter 
of it.” 

I pointed to the deck of the great ship, whence the 
figure of my little Joan had disappeared as myste- 
riously as it came, and there I showed to Larry a 
group of men in earnest talk with a newcomer from 
the steamer which now lay almost alongside the 
larger vessel. The quick movements, the gestures 
of this company, betrayed the curiosity which the 
stranger’s words awakened and the astonishment 
that rightly followed upon it. Imagining myself 
to be a spy among them, I heard, in imagination, 
2S0 


WE DEFY THE ROGUES 


every word of that fateful conversation. “We sent 
no message.” “ You’ve been fooled, right enough.” 
“ There’s mischief afloat.” “ No, we had no accident 
— what in thunder are you talking about — it’s a 
lie — ! ” So the new hand must be telling the aston- 
ished crew. It needed no great prescience to say what 
would follow after. Even Timothy McShanus ar- 
rived at it before I had finished. 

“Would that be Colin Ross gone aboard.?*” he 
asked me, wheeling about suddenly. 

I told him it would hardly be another. 

“ Then he’ll tell ’em the truth about the cables, 
or I’m a liar ! ” 

“ He will tell them the truth about the cables, and 
you are not a liar, Timothy. He is doing so at this 
very moment.” 

“ Faith, man, they’ll be firing shots at us, then ! ” 

“ It is possible, Timothy. If you are curious on 
the point ” 

“ Curious be d d ! Would ye have me in the 

sea.?” 

“ In the sea or out, I would have you keep a cool 
head, Timothy. They are going to fire at us, but 
that is not to say that they are going to hit us. 
Our turn comes after. Neither to-day nor to-mor- 
row may see the end of it. I am only beginning with 
them, Timothy. When I have done, God help some 
of them, the Jew above the others. Now wait for 
231 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


it and see. Here’s the lantern busy. They are put- 
ting the story to the proof, you will observe. Let 
us hope that their astonishment may not be too much 
for them.” 

So a commonplace chatter went, and yet the mad 
intoxication of that interval of suspense had come 
upon us all as a fever; and no man might measure 
his words. There we were, sagging in the trough of 
the seas some three hundred yards, it may be, from 
the great ship’s guns, our crew muttering in hoarse 
whispers, the steam hissing from our valves, the 
smoke drifting to the north in a dense, suffocating 
cloud. Aware of the few moments of grace possible 
to us, we had given the word down to Mr. Benson 
to go full speed astern; and running thus for the 
half of a mile, we then swung the yacht round and 
headed due south at all the speed of which we were 
capable. Now, indeed, the tense hour of our doubt 
began. We counted the very minutes until the 
beams of the monster searchlight should ensnare us 
once more. Brief exclamations, cheery words of 
hope flashing from man to man, gave passage to that 
current of human electricity which burned us as a 
flame. Would the light never fall.? Aye, yonder it 
strikes the sea, and yonder, and yonder, compassing 
the horizon around in a twinkling, a blind glory, a 
very Pharos of the unknown world. And now it falls 
full upon us, and man can look upon the face of man 
2S2 


WE DEFY THE ROGUES 


as though he stood beneath the sun of day ; and all 
is stillness, and silence, and the unspoken question. 

Far as we were away, a roar of triumph could be 
heard across the sea when the Jew’s ship discovered 
us and the great beams of the searchlight rested upon 
us exultingly. In turn, the smoke from our funnel 
forbade us any longer to locate the enemy, or to form 
an opinion as to his movements. Certainly, no gun- 
shot followed immediately upon his achievement ; and 
when a little gust of the south wind, veering a point 
or two, carried the loom from our furnaces away, 
we espied the two ships drifting as before, and even 
boats passing from one to the other. From this 
time, moreover, the darkness failed us somewhat, and 
a great moon tempered the ocean with its translucent 
beams of silvery hght. Our safety lay in our speed. 
We burned the precious coal without stint, since our 
very lives were in the furnaces’ keeping. 

“ What keeps them, Larry ? What are they wait- 
ing for?” I asked him presently. He had deserted 
the bridge, and stood aft with me to watch the dis- 
tant steamers. McShanus, meanwhile, paced the 
decks like a lion at the hour of feeding. It 
was his way of saying that he found the suspense 
intolerable. 

“ I don’t think we shall have to wait long, sir,” the 
captain answered me ; “ you see, they would hardly 
be ready to fire their guns, and not overmuch dis- 
233 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 

cipline among them, I suppose. If they hit us, it 
will be something by way of an accident.” 

“ And yet one that might happen, Larry. Well, 
here it comes, anyway ! And a wicked bad shot, I 
must say ! ” 

It was odd that they should have fired at the very 
moment I replied to him, yet such was the fact and 
such the coincidence. Scarcely had I opened my 
mouth when a monstrous yellow flame leaped out 
over the bows of the Diamond Ship (which now had 
put about to chase us), and, spreading itself abroad 
upon the waters, left a heavy cloud of black smoke 
very baffling to their gunners. As for the shell, I 
know not to this day where it fell. We heard neither 
explosion nor splash, saw no spume or spray upon 
the hither sea, and were, not a man of us, a penny 
the worse for their endeavor. A second attempt 
achieved no better result. True, we detected the 
shell this time, for it fell plump into the sea, near 
the fifth part of a mile from our starboard quarters ; 
but the wretched shooting, the long interval between 
the shots, and the speed at which we travelled in- 
spired confidence anew, and so surely, that my men 
began to cheer the gunners ironically, and even to 
flash a signal to them across the sea. Such a pleas- 
antry I did not forbid them, until discipline cried 
out for fairer language. “ Go and cook bacon in 

h 1 ! ” was the message sent by our man Abel 

234 > 


WE DEFY THE ROGUES 


when our backs were turned. This, be it confessed, 
spoke a seaman’s tongue — I am sure that Captain 
Larry was glad that he had been looking the other 
way when it was sent. 

“ It’s as I thought, Larry,” said I ; “ they carry a 
gun and have no more idea how to use it than a lady 
in charge of a boarding school. The Jew has been 
living as near to a fool’s paradise as such a man is 
ever likely to get to paradise at all. I think we need 
waste no more coal. Let us lie to and take our 
chances. The risk is too small to think about.” 

“ Yon man would never hit cokernuts at a fair ! ” 
chimed in McShanus, who had come up ; “ what will 
ye be flying over the ocean for.? Is it coal we have 
to steam to China and back.? Sure, the docther is 
wise entirely, and be hanged to them! We lie here 
as safe as a babe in a mother’s lap I ” 

We laughed at his earnestness, but the order was 
rung down nevertheless, and presently the yacht lay 
rolling to the swell, and we could hear the stokers 
drawing a furnace below. Who is justly to blame 
for the accident which followed, I do not dare to tell 
myself. Sometimes I have charged myself with it, 
and complained bitterly of the opinions I had ven- 
tured. I can only tell you that the yacht had scarcely 
been slowed down again when the rogues’ ship fired 
at us again, and the shot, crossing our forward decks 
at an angle of some fifty-five degrees, struck a fine 
16 2S5 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


young seaman of the name of Holland, and almost 
annihilated him before our very eyes. The tragedy 
had a greater significance because of the very mirth 
with which we had but a moment before regarded the 
Jew’s gunners and their performance. Death stood 
there upon the heels of laughter ; a cry in the night 
was the answer to an honest man’s defiance and my 
own bravado. As for poor Holland, the shot took 
him about the middle and cut him absolutely in two. 
He could have suffered no pain, so instantaneously 
was he hurled into eternity. One moment I saw him 
standing at the bulwarks watching the distant 
searchlight ; at the next, there remained but a dread- 
ful something upon the deck from which men turned 
their eyes in horror and dared not so much as speak 
about. 

You are to imagine with what consternation and 
dismay this accident fell upon us. For many min- 
utes together no man spoke a word to another. Such 
a deathly silence came upon the ship that our own 
act and judgment might have brought this awful 
disaster, and not the play of capricious chance. To 
say that the men were afraid, is to do them less than 
justice. In war time it is the earliest casualties which 
affright the troops and send the blood from the 
bravest faces. Our good fellows had gone into this 
adventure with me thinking that they understood its 
risks, but in reality understanding them not at all. 
236 


WE DEFY THE ROGUES 


The truth appalled them, drove challenge from their 
lips and laughter from their eyes. They were new 
men thereafter — British seamen, handy-men, who 
worked silently, methodically, stubbornly, as such 
fellows ever will when duty calls them. Had I sug- 
gested that we should return immediately to Europe, 
they would have broken into open mutiny on the spot. 
Henceforth no word of mine need advocate my work 
or ask of them true comradeship. I knew that they 
would follow me to the ends of the earth if thereby 
they might avenge their shipmate. 

“ Larry,” I said, ‘‘ the blame of that is upon me. 
God forgive my rashness! I feel as though my own 
folly had cost me the hfe of one of my own sons.” 

“ Sir,” was his answer, “ you had no more to do 
with it than the king himself. I will not hear such 
talk. The chances are the same for all of us. It 
might have been yourself, sir.” 

McShanus was no less insistent. * 

“ ’Tis to do our duty we are here,” he said. “ If 
there is a man among us who is ashamed of his duty, 
let us be ashamed of him. Ye cannot change your- 
self with the act of the Divine will, Ean. I pity yon 
poor fellow from my very soul; but I set our devo- 
tion to you beyond any pity of men. Ye have done 
your best for us all — what happens to us is in God’s 
providence, and ye have no right to question it.” 

I did not answer them. The seamen, awakened 

237 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


from their trance, ran to the help of a comrade long 
past all human help. Far away over the waters, the 
Diamond Ship still fired her impotent shells at us. 
Their very impotency convinced me how surely an 
accident had killed poor Holland. I said that it had 
been the will of God, indeed, that one should perish 
on the altar of our justice and his life be the first 
sacrifice to be asked of us. In my own cabin, alone 
and bitterly distressed, a greater depression fell 
upon me ; so that I could ask myself why I had been 
chosen for the part at all, or how it befell that of 
the thousands who had been robbed by Valentine Im- 
roth, the Jew, I alone must set out to discover him. 
Vain, indeed, did triumph appear now. We had 
defied the rogues, and they had answered us, not with 
a final answer, truly, but with that hush and awe of 
death which is never so terrible as upon the lonely 
waste of the great silent ocean. 

Nor was the hour to pass without further news 
of them. Impotent at the guns, they fell to words, 
rapped out by our receiver so plainly that a very 
child of telegraphy could have read them. 

‘‘ The message of Valentine Imroth to the Eng- 
lishman, Fabos. I take up your challenge. Joan 
Fordibras shall pay your debt in full.” 


238 


CHAPTER XXIV 


DAWN 

I HAVE it in my mind that it was just upon the 
stroke of one o’clock of the morning, or two bells 
in the middle watch, when this amazing message came 
to me. Larry and the Irishman were asleep at that 
time, the third officer keeping the bridge and send- 
ing down to summon me to the Marconi instrument. 
Indefatigable as my friends had been in their ener- 
gies and zeal, there are limits to human endurance 
which no prudent master ignores, and to their bunks 
I sent them despite their indignation. For myself, 
I can never sleep in the hour of crisis or its develop- 
ments. Physically, I am then incapable of sleep. A 
sense of fatigue is unknown to me. I seem to be as 
one apart from the normal life of men, untrammeled 
by human necessities and unconscious even of mental 
effort. Perhaps the subsequent collapse is the more 
absolute when it comes. I have slept for thirty 
hours upon a question finally answered. The end of 
my day is the end also of whatever task I have for 
the time being undertaken. 

The men were sleeping, and why should I awake 

239 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


them? Fallin, the young officer, had but little news 
to report. The Diamond Ship no longer wasted her 
shells in angry impotence. Her searchlight had 
ceased to play upon the moonlit waters. Such 
tidings as came, were of a steamer’s mast-head light 
seen for an instant upon our port bow and then 
vanishing. 

“ It’s a usual course for tramps, sir,” the young 
officer said ; “ and to tell you the truth, I wasn’t sure 
enough about it at all to wake the captain. If it 
were a ship out of Buenos Ayres, she’s keeping more 
south than usual; but I’ve altered the course for a 
star before now, and you don’t care to wake up such 
a seaman as Captain Larry to tell him you’ve done 
that. His orders to me were to go down and report 
anything unusual. Well, a glimpse of a ship’s light 
shouldn’t be unusual, and that’s a fact.” 

I agreed with him; young landsman that I was, 
I thought that I could read the omen better than he. 
If he had seen the mast-head light of a strange 
steamer, she could be no other than the second of 
the relief ships the Jew was awaiting. Herein lay 
many and disquieting possibilities. Given coal and 
stores enough, what was there to prevent the rogues 
putting in to some South American port, landing 
there such plunder as they had, and dispersing to 
the cities wherein their friends would shelter them. 
I foresaw immediately a complete frustration of my 
240 


DAWN 


own plans and a conclusion of my task, humiliating 
beyond relief. Not improbably that great hulk of 
a ship sailed already under the colors of some irre- 
sponsible republic. She might, I judged, fly the 
Venezuelan flag, or that of Honduras or Nicaragua. 
The ports of such governments would be ready 
enough to give her shelter if backsheesh enough were 
to hand. And what, then, of all our labors ; above 
all, what, then, of little Joan.? 

This would be to say that the message still troubled 
me, and that I had by no means come to a resolution 
upon it. Let it be admitted that it found me a little 
wanting in courage. If reason, the sober reason of 
one who has made it his life’s task to read the crim- 
inal mind, the principles which guide it and the limits 
within which it is logical, if reason such as this read 
the J ew’s ultimatum aright, then might it be derided 
utterly. The man would dare nothing against Joan 
Fordibras while an alternative remained to him. She 
was his last card. Should he harm her, henceforth 
he must become a fugitive, not from the justice of a 
state, but from man’s vengeance. This I plainly 
perceived — nevertheless, the lonely watches of the 
night brought me an echo of a child’s voice, a word 
spoken as it were from a child’s heart; so that I 
could say that the little Joan who had turned to me 
in her trouble had looked into the very soul of my 
eyes, that she was a prisoner yonder, alone among 
24<1 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


them all, a hostage in the hands of ruffians, their first 
and last hope of ultimate salvation from the gallows 
and the cell. She suffered — she must suffer the tor- 
tures of doubt, of suspense, it might even be of in- 
sult. And I, who had spoken such fine words, I could 
but rage against her persecutors, threaten them idly, 
or write down a message of their contumely. Such 
was the penalty of the hour of waiting. I wonder 
not that I found it almost insupportable. 

I have written that the third officer made his report 
of a strange steamer about two bells of the middle 
watch. Not less curious than he, I paced the bridge 
with him until dawn, and heard no further tidings. 
When Larry himself turned out, it was just before 
the hour of sunrise, and we stood together (Mc- 
Shanus coming up from the saloon with a welcome 
jorum of steaming coffee) to see the break of day 
and to scan the face of the waters for any confirma- 
tion of the young officer’s story. 

How still it was, how sublime, how wonderful! 
Unchanging in its awe and mystery, the birth of day, 
whether it be viewed from the deck of a ship, the 
summit of a mountain, or even from the heart of a 
great and sleeping city, must ever remain a spectacle 
of transcendent beauty and majesty. It is as though 
the Eternal spoke to the sea and the land from the 
open gate of heaven itself — a command to live anew 
for the work of the day upon which the Holy Spirit 
242 


DAWN 


would breathe. On the ocean there is that added 
glory of a vast horizon, of the immeasurable ether 
and the fading magnitude of the stars. Driven 
back reluctantly, as the poet has written. Night 
draws off her armies and the sun chariots speed on. 
You see them afar, a glow of chill, gray light be- 
neath the vault of the stars. Winds moan fretfully, 
the sails above you sag and shiver, stillness falls 
upon the waters — a silence as profound as that of 
man’s deepest homage. For a little while a trance 
has come upon things inanimate. Little rills of 
foam go running to the breasts of the greater waves 
as cubs to the she-bear for warmth and safety. A 
battle is waged in the heavens, but the hosts are hid- 
den. The clouds labor, but are riven. An arc of 
golden iridescence blazons the eastern sky. Day’s 
outposts march on to victory, and man lifts his 
hands to invoke their aid. 

A daily scene, and yet how unchangingly sublime! 
Standing there upon the bridge with my good f riends 
about me, it seemed that the glory of the morn shone 
full upon our faces and bade us hope. No longer 
did the night baffle our weary eyes. We sailed a 
frilling sea at the splendor of the day, and far away 
upon the clear horizon we espied the relief ship of 
which our third officer had spoken. 

“No star, sir, after all,” said he, “ unless, that 
is, you would care to call her a lucky star.” 

243 


CHAPTER XXV 


THE THRASHER AND THE WHAEE 

The steamer, driving on rapidly to the westward, 
showed her hull very plainly when a quarter of an 
hour had passed, and was immediately named by 
Cain, the quartermaster, who was at the wheel, for 
a collier he had seen some months back at Cardiff. 

“ She flew the Brazilian flag, sir, and carried a 
Russian skipper what had a picture nose,” said he 
cheerily enough. ‘‘ I remember the boys said that 
some one tattoed a bit of a circus scene on his figure- 
head when he was took in drink at Rio last trip. I’d 
have knowed the ship anywheres by that doll’s house 
abaft the funnel. Leastwise, if there ain’t two of 
’em, she’s the same.” 

His logic was commendable, and we questioned him. 

“ Had she any arms, Cain? ” 

“ Nothing that I see, sir, saving the shovels.” 

“ And you didn’t know where she was bound to ? ” 

‘‘ They gave it as Rio, sir. I had a bit of a 
tumble-to with a Portuguese steward of theirs, and 
I give him Port Arthur for himself. ‘ You come out 
244 . 


THRASHER AND WHALE 


to Rio,’ says he, ‘ and I’ll d n well pull your 

nose! ’ It seemed to me a long way to go for the 
job, sir, and that I could get it done cheaper at 
home. I never see him again, and next day the ship 
sailed.” 

We laughed at his manner of telling it, but the 
news proved acceptable enough. I had already come 
to a determination, and this I communicated imme- 
diately to Larry. 

We must stop them,” I said, “ if we are to save 
Joan Fordibras; that steamer must not put her 
cargo on the deck of the Diamond Ship. The risk 
is small enough, captain. I think that a signal will 
do it — if not a signal, then a gunshot, anyway. Let 
us put it to the proof. The success or failure will 
mean more than any of you imagine.” 

He obeyed me without question, and we steamed 
straight for the tramp, steering such a course that 
we overtook her on the port-quarter, and so were 
difficult to come at by any forward gun, should she 
carry one. My own impression was that she did not. 
Her safety from inquisitional officers in port would 
be better assured by the normal practice of ocean- 
going cargo boats. I believed that the quartermas- 
ter had told us the truth, and upon that supposition 
I acted. 

“ Signal to her to bring to, Larry I ” I said, and 
he assented immediately. 

245 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


It was pretty to see our flags fluttering upon the 
breeze of morning, and to watch the commotion upon 
the deck of the tramp. We knew that she had sighted 
us almost as soon as we set our engines going. The 
far horizon disclosed no trace of the Diamond Ship. 
We two appeared alone in all that vista of the roll- 
ing waters. 

Now the ships answered by demanding our name 
and our business. We could make out the figures 
of two or three men upon her bridge; but the crew 
appeared an unusually small one, and the aft decks 
were completely deserted. To their signal, we re- 
plied immediately: 

(1) That Imroth, the Jew, was flying from British 
warships. 

(2) That their own safety depended upon their 
immediate submission. 

Not the whole truth, perhaps, and yet, as I hoped, 
truth enough. It had been in my mind all along that 
the Government would send at least a patrol to the 
seas I had named. I could not believe that, after my 
revelations, ports would not be watched. So I sig- 
nalled this message and waited with not a little 
expectation for an answer. To my astonishment, 
their captain’s reply was to ask me to go aboard, 
meaning, of course, the master of the yacht. 

“ Come with me, Timothy,” said I to McShanus ; 
“ don’t talk about pistols, man ! Larry will stand 
246 


THRASHER AND WHALE 


by for danger. We could sink them in five minutes 
if we had the mind. It’s as safe as Rotten Row.” 

“No safe place at all for a man who is susceptible 
to woman’s beauty. Go aboard, Ean, my bhoy; I’ll 
take your word for it when I come back ! ” 

We put out a gangway and lowered the lifeboat 
from the starboard davits. The collier, lying some 
two hundred paces from our bows, let down a pilot’s 
ladder for me, and I caught it as it swung, and 
climbed to her decks. Far down below me now, the 
portly Timothy asked me if I thought he was a bird. 
I left him, full of strange oaths, in the boat and pre- 
sented myself immediately to the captain of the 
steamer. 

“ Do you speak English ? ” I asked. 

He shook his head and said “ Nitchevo ! ” em- 
phatically. 

A phrase in German, however, obtained an imme- 
diate answer. I perceived him to be a coarsely built 
man of some fifty years of age, his nose scarred 
roughly by a seaman’s needle, as the quartermaster 
Cain had told me, and his manner as threatening 
and full of bluster as his master, the Jew, could 
have wished. 

“ What’s your business with me ? ” he asked, while 
his clumsy fingers fondled a revolver he carried in 
his breeches pocket. 

“ To keep your neck out of the noose,” said I, 

247 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


without any preface whatever. “ Your game is up 
and Val Imroth taken. That’s what brought me 
here!” 

He spat on the deck and called a mate to him — 
another Russian no more beautiful than he. For a 
few moments they conversed together in a dialect 
I could make nothing of. It was plain that, while 
my story astounded them beyond measure, they 
were by no means ready to believe it. And so 
they fell to bluff which would not have deceived a 
child. 

‘‘ What’s this man to me ? ” the captain asked. 
“ Am I his servant ? ” 

“ Undoubtedly, since you carry coal to his ship.” 

“ Suppose I tell you to go to h 1 and mind 

your own business ? ” 

“ In that case, you might arrive at the destination 
before me. I am going to give you ten minutes. If 
you are not steaming eastward at the end of that 
time, I promise you that I will most certainly send 
you ta the bottom. Reflect upon it calmly. You 
cannot help the Jew, but may save yourselves. I’ll 
tell you something else. If you have any coal to sell, 
I am a buyer. Now, do not finger that pistol of 
yours, for it might go off, and as sure as God’s in 
heaven, if it did, this crew would be on the floor of 
the Atlantic in less than five minutes. Rattle your 
senses, my man, and speak up! If yonder warship 
248 


THRASHER AND WHALE 


spies us out, she’ll not deal so tenderly with you. 
What is the Jew to you, and why should you sell 
your liberty for him ? Come, think of it ! I am not 
a patient man, but I will give you time enough not 
to make a fool of yourself.” 

They were brazen words, upon my life! When I 
pointed westward to a loom of smoke upon the hori- 
zon scarcely bigger than a man’s hand — when I did 
this, and spoke in the same breath of a warship, 
then, surely, the ingenuity of suggestion could go 
no further. As for the rascally Russian, I saw that 
he was struck all of a heap. His eyes had already 
told him that the yacht White Wings carried machine 
guns and a torpedo tube. Perhaps he argued that 
even if he raced for it, we could sink him before the 
Diamond Ship so much as sighted him ; and this was 
to assume that a haze of smoke upon the horizon 
indicated the presence of the Jew’s vessel, and not 
of a British warship. In either case he found him- 
self between the devil and the deep sea ; and, be sure, 
I lost no minute of a precious opportunity. 

“ The game is up,” I resumed, “ and your friend 
the Jew is about to pay the price of it ! If you wish 
to contribute your share, go on and join the fun. 
I don’t suppose the police care much about such riff- 
raff as you have on board here. Get them back to 
Cardiff, and let them find new ships. You are 
thinking of the money — well, if you can fill my bun- 
249 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


kers yonder, I will pay a long price for the stuff 
you carry — down on your table in English sover- 
eigns.” 

At this, he regarded me very curiously. A dull 
head is often obstinate in suspicion. The fellow per- 
ceived his advantage, and could have pressed it. 

“Oh!” said he, “then you are short of coal?” 

“ We are short of coal,” I rejoined, my frankness 
astounding him ; “ the others have none to spare, and 
if we buy none of you, we must run to Porto Grande. 
In that case, you will carry this cargo back to 
Europe and be arrested when you step ashore. I 
shall see to that, my man, when I touch at the 
islands. The police will be waiting for you, and you 
will get nothing — paid down and counted out. Bet- 
ter take my money, and £10 apiece for your crew, 
not to mention a little deal between us which you 
may not find unsatisfactory I ” 

In such a manner we wrangled and argle-bargled 
for the best part of an hour. Providentially, the 
Diamond Ship, whose smoke had at one time been 
visible, stood upon a westerly course and disappeared 
from our ken as we talked. I found the Russian to 
be a low-witted, covetous fellow, not greatly to be 
overawed by threats, but exceedingly susceptible to 
the substantial facts of money. In the end, I bought 
what coal we could carry from him at a price which 
I would cheerfully have doubled. And, indeed, I do 
250 


THRASHER AND WHALE 


think it was one of the best day’s work I ever did in 
all my life. To cut off the Jew’s patrol, to fill our 
own bunkers with his precious steam coal, carried at 
such a risk from Cardiff, to send the tramp steamer 
back again whence she came — even the matter-of-fact 
Larry could find no word to fit it. As for my poor 
friend Timothy, his emotions were altogether too 
much for him. 

“ Docther,” said he, ‘‘ I doubt your salvation, and 
that’s the truth of it. Say that we are going back 
to dine on the Jew’s ship, and I’ll believe ye entirely. 
’Twould not be more wonderful than that which 
these poor old eyes are showing me.” 

I told him not to make a fool of himself, but to 
serve his turn as sentinel, while we brought the yacht 
alongside the collier and took in coal from her. 
Treachery might yet be planned against us, though 
I doubted it. We posted an armed guard upon the 
bridge and stripped our forward guns of their covers 
— the swell ran kindly and the sea was like a mirror. 
Hardly believing their own eyes, but obeying me 
nevertheless, our good fellows set to work like nig- 
gers and filled our bunkers with the precious stuff. 
It had been at seven bells of the morning watch when 
they began ; it was three of the afternoon before they 
had done. The coal chutes with which the tramp was 
provided to fill the Jew’s bunkers now filled our own 
admirably. I paid the Russian captain honestly, and 
17 251 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


sent him at all speed to the eastward when the busi- 
ness was done. 

“ Return as you came, and keep your mouth shut,” 
I said; “ I will answer for you to the police, should 
the need arise. It will be your own fault if it does.” 

He thanked me with some civility, and I could see 
that he now considered himself a very fortunate 
fellow. To be frank, I had dismissed him utterly 
from my mind half an hour after he cast off; and 
the excitement of the deal having passed, I called to 
our steward to bring me tea to the cabin, and there 
we held a council, vital beyond any in its significance 
and its earnestness. For now must we decide, in- 
stantly and finally, what steps must be taken to save 
my little Joan from the devils of the Diamond Ship. 
How were we, the crew of a puny yacht, to bring 
that great hive of ruffians to book.^^ What course 
dare we risk.^^ What hope had we of any assistance 
from the British or other governments.? This is 
what we discussed when we had lighted our cigars 
and the tea was poured out. And this is much how 
the talk went. 

Myself — “ We must first consider the threat. I 
believe that they are capable both of torturing and 
of killing Joan Fordibras if they are driven to it. 
But they will only do so in an extremity. She is 
their hostage. The moment that they harm her, 
they have done all that they can against us. If she 
252 


THRASHER AND WHALE 


be subject to insult meanwhile, well, they have to 
deal with one of singular courage and resource. It 
is a callous argument, but that much we must ignore. 
My own idea is to lead them to the belief that we are 
watching them. Let us play the part of a thrasher 
to the whale — hang on to them day and night, track 
them to their port, and cable news to Europe when 
we can. If they run for South America, we shall 
fall in with ships bound to Rio and Montevideo. 
The mails to the Argentine have the Marconi instru- 
ment. We can hardly fail to catch one of them. I 
would rather burn this yacht than turn back now. 
If you, my friends, are of another opinion, do not be 
afraid to tell me so. We have lost one poor fellow 
and may lose others. It is for the men, and for them 
firstly, to say how far we shall go and what risks we 
shall take.” 

Larry — “ The men are of one mind, sir. Don’t 
think more about them. Poor Holland’s death has 
settled it. They would go through fire to be up with 
yonder ruffians. Of course, I see how you are fixed. 
We could sink her hulk with a torpedo, and make no 
bones about it. But that’s not to be thought of. 
Just stand by and tease them, say I, and as near out 
of gunshot as may be.” 

McShanus — ‘‘ The docther says the lady must 
put up with their insults, but ye can see the blood 
going and coming from his cheeks while he says it. I 
253 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


honor him for it. We want to get the girl off the 
ship and not to lose the Jew in the doing of it. ’Tis 
an employment for a Japanese wizard, faith! Here’s 
yon rogue running for a South American port, and 
when he’s ashore, he’ll make monkey faces at ye. Tell 
yourselves that, and cry out against the govern- 
ments. It’s all ye can do that I can see.” 

Myself — “ I am far from sure of it, Timothy, but 
prophecy is of little help to us. We must follow 
these people, and let them know that we are follow- 
ing them. Impudence has stopped one of their fleet 
and may stop another. I am going to see how far it 
helps me with the Jew himself.” 

More I said to the same end, but there would be 
no purpose in repeating it. Let it be sufficient that 
we decided ultimately upon a plan of pursuit which 
would keep these people aware of our presence by 
night and day, and provoke them to every attack 
which it lay in their power to make upon us. The 
rest was beyond us. We could but face the issue 
calmly, accepting that which was decreed both for 
ourselves and for her whose safety we so ardently 
desired. 


254 


CHAPTER XXVI 

SEVEN DAYS EATER 

There is much of which my log might speak to 
tell the history of the seven days which followed 
upon our resolution. We had pledged ourselves to 
harass the Diamond Ship by night and day; and 
bravely had we done so. Incessantly now the mes- 
sages passed from our deck to hers by way of her 
flags and instruments. Threats, defiance, insult — 
to these we became accustomed. A torture of sus- 
pense had been superseded by a dull submission to 
necessity. Joan Fordibras was a prisoner, and we 
could not lift a hand to save her. I did not trust 
myself to think what she had suffered, or what those 
hours of alternating hope and suspense must have 
meant to her. No light came to me of the sunniest 
day. I could but wait and watch. 

All this time we lay drifting some two or three 
miles, I suppose, from the great vessel which har- 
bored the Jew and his company. Sometimes, when 
the night was moonless, we ran up boldly and spied 
the huge ship out, defying her imtrained gunners, 
255 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


and learning what we could of that which passed 
upon her decks. There was a cabin aft, I remember, 
which I named as Joan’s ; and I would place her 
therein, and depict her in my mind sheltered there 
from the Jew’s anger and the insults of his fellows. 
How changed she must be from the Joan I had 
seen upon the beach at Dieppe, the laughing 
little Thalia of the sandy shore; the Joan who had 
plied me with such earnest questions, looked up at 
me with eyes so full of doubt and the desire to be- 
lieve. Nor could I hope to be in any sense the figure 
of her childish romance. She might not even know 
that White Wings followed her at all — possibly they 
kept her too close a prisoner to learn anything, which 
the guns did not tell her, of our pursuit and its 
consequences. Such must be my supposition as I 
watched the yellow light glowing in her cabin win- 
dows, and said that Joan was awake and weary for 
my coming. 

That which perplexed us chiefly was the evident 
indecision of those who commanded the great ship. 
At first we thought that they were steering her for 
a South American port; but after running for 
twenty-four hours almost due westward, they lay to 
once more and drifted without apparent aim whither- 
soever the tide of the south Atlantic would take 
them. What their purpose was I could but hazard 
by conjecture. Possibly they waited for another 
256 


SEVEN DAYS LATER 


patrol from Europe — it may even be that refugees 
were upon the high seas, and that Imroth did not 
dare to desert them. I could but guess his reasons, 
I say, and guesswork helped me but little. The 
nameless ship guarded her secrets too close that I 
should hope to be the master of them. 

Now, thus six days had passed, and I will take you 
to the morning of the seventh, when, chancing to 
be on the poop at a very early hour, Balaam, our 
Scotch bo’sun, called my attention to the distant 
ship and to something which was passing on her 
decks. 

“ There’s nae a pill for the parritch the morn,” 
said he in his dry fashion ; “ yon body’s fired no gun, 
sir, since yesterday morn. Maybe ’tis pure joy of 
heart. I’m not knowing rightly, but it’s sufficiently 
reemarkable, as you must be thinking.” 

This was new, surely, and I gratified the good 
fellow by admitting as much. 

“ Looks as though she was running a bit short of 
ammunition, Balaam,” I said ; “ has there been any- 
thing else you have noticed ? ” 

“ Naething in particular, sir. She’s fired a pop- 
gun or two, but maybe she’s over merry the morn. 
You can hear them for yourself. Bide here a mo- 
ment and I’ll show you.” 

He took his stand by the taffrail and pointed with 
a tarry hand at the distant ship. Day had broken 
257 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


propitiously with a fleece of cloud high in the heav- 
ens and a shimmer of splendid sunlight upon the 
chattering waters. The Diamond Ship herself lay 
distant perhaps a couple of miles from us. She 
had sails set to prevent her rolling, but not a vestige 
of smoke escaped her funnels, nor was there any in- 
dication of her being under steam. When I spied 
out her decks through my powerful glass, I per- 
ceived that they were crowded with men. 

“ Good God ! ” I said, “ they are fighting among 
themselves ! ” 

‘‘ Aye, such kittle-cattle would likely take to that 
employment.” 

And the guns which they fired — why, it’s provi- 
dential, man! Go and call Captain Larry at 
once I ” 

I am not habitually to be moved to any great dis- 
play of mental exhilaration, but I confess that this 
amazing scene robbed me altogether of my self- 
possession. The surprise of it, the unlooked-for 
development, the vast possibilities of a mutiny 
amongst the Jew’s men, had, it is true, suggested 
themselves to me in one or other of those dreams 
of achievement with which we all combat the duller 
facts of life ; but that such a hope should be on the 
verge of realization, that I should with my own eyes 
witness the beginning of the fulfillment of it and 
hear the guns which justified my dreaming — that, 
258 


SEVEN DAYS LATER 


I say, appeared to me the most wonderful thing that 
had happened since our voyage began. 

“ Larry,” I said, when he came up from the cabin 
— McShanus upon his heels — they are shooting 
each other, Larry ! I hope that the news distresses 
you ” 

He did not reply immediately, but, focussing his 
glass, he directed it upon the distant ship. Timothy, 
in his turn, took his stand beside me and, clapping 
his hand upon my shoulder, answered for the 
captain. 

“ I wish ’em honorable wakes ! Did ye think of 
this, doctor ? ” 

“ Not as a probability.” 

‘‘ And of what would happen to Joan Fordibras 
if they quarreled amongst themselves ? ” 

“ I dare not think of it, Timothy — she would be 
in her cabin. Good God ! why do you make me think 
of it.? Are not the circumstances eloquent enough.? ” 

He cringed away from me — excellent fellow that 
he was, I knew that he blamed his own indiscretion 
— and spoke no further word for many minutes. All 
hands on the yacht had now come up to see a spec- 
tacle at once so terrible and unlooked for. Upon 
my part, I stood by the taffrail to watch the puffs 
of heavy white smoke and try to depict the tragedy 
then consummated on the decks of the Diamond Ship. 
What a scene of horror and bloodshed it must be! 

259 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


I could readily imagine that there had been two par- 
ties, and that they had come first to words and then 
to arbitrament of deeds. Some of the Jew’s men, 
I said, had been for running to a South American 
port; others had been for standing by such of their 
comrades as Sycamore’s relief might bring. They 
fell to hot talk upon it, I might suppose, and then 
to blows. And now we could hear the crack of their 
rifles, and could see the smoke of them soaring up- 
ward amid the taut white sails, even to the truck of 
the mainmast. What sights and sounds that cur- 
tain of the vapor must hide f rom us ! And who shall 
wonder if the situation provoked us to a rashness 
without precedent! We had temptation enough, 
surely ! 

“ Larry,” I said, “ I am going to see what is hap- 
pening yonder. Let Mr. Benson know that we shall 
want all the steam he can give us. There is no risk 
to anyone. Please let the men understand as much.” 

‘‘ You are going up to the ship, sir.?* ” 

“ Within a biscuit toss, and nearer perhaps ” 

“ It’s staking much, sir.” 

So little, Larry, that we’ll have our breakfasts 
while we watch them. Even Mr. McShanus, you ob- 
serve, is not disturbed. I believe that he imagines 
himself in a theater.” 

But Timothy McShanus answered this for himself. 

“ Indade and I do,” said he, “ and no more dis- 

260 


SEVEN DAYS LATER 


turbed than a man at a hanging. Set a dish of par- 
ritch before me and ye shall see. Faith! should I 
weep tears because one thief is cutting another 
thief’s throat ? Divil a tear at all ! ” 

We laughed at this splendid earnestness, while 
Larry went up to the bridge; and Timothy himself 
came up to me and spoke a more serious word. 

“ Ye are easier in your mind,” he said, scanning 
my face closely ; “ ’tis good to see it, Ean, me bhoy ! 
Ye don’t think Miss Joan will suffer, now, do ye? ” 
“ She will suffer, but only her fears, Timothy. 
The danger comes later, when this is over. I do not 
think of it, because I hope to share it with her.” 

‘‘ Good God! ye are not going on board, man.?^ ” 
“ I am going on board, Timothy — that is, if my 
judgment leads me to believe it possible. I’ll tell you 
in half an hour’s time.” 

He was too amazed to reply to me, and for many 
minutes he stood there, plucking at his iron-gray 
whiskers and whistling softly. The yacht stood by 
this time within half a mile of the great ship, and 
every furlong she made set the fascinating picture 
before us in clearer focus. That our approach 
would be observed, or any notice taken of us, I never 
for one moment believed. Whatever cause of quarrel 
set those wolves at each other’s throats, they fought, 
it was plain, with the desperation of maniacs. 

Taking my stand upon our forward bridge, I 

^61 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


could clearly discern a group of men defending the 
fo’castle and another in ambush behind the super- 
structure amidships. A powerful glass disclosed 
the prone figures of such as had already fallen, while 
the intervals, when a restless breeze carried the haze 
of smoke to the eastward, permitted a fuller view of 
the spectacle, revolting in its detail. 

The villains were evidently enraged beyond all 
measure. I could see them in the death grip, here 
wrestling as athletes upon a stage, there fighting 
upon their hands and knees, as savages who cut and 
slash at the face and head and heart in unsurpassable 
lust of blood and life. But beyond this, the greater 
terror was to know that the ship sheltered Joan 
Fordibras, and that she must be the witness of this 
debauch. What could it mean to such a one to suffer 
that.? Again I say that I had no courage to think 
of it. Our own situation forbade such thoughts. 
We were running right up as though to ram the 
leviathan before us, and the very voices of the com- 
batants could now be distinguished by us ; while the 
sunlight showed us the shimmer of the knives, the 
reeling figures, and the death agonies of our enemies. 
Had we been of the mind, we could have sent them 
to the bottom with a torpedo from our tube and no 
man among us been a penny the worse for our temer- 
ity. But to such a vengeance as that we had no call ; 
nor did we so much as contemplate it while Joan 
262 


SEVEN DAYS LATER 


remained their hostage. It was sufficient to watch 
them as we would; to wait and hope for the first 
fruits of a tragedy so providential. 

We had come to no agreement upon the nature 
of our approach, or upon the limits which prudence 
should set to it. I left it to Larry’s wise head, and 
could have done no better. A splendid seaman, he 
proved himself that day to be also a master of tactics 
which kept our yacht astern of the big ship and 
crept up to her upon such an angle that risk of 
detection — at least until the fight should be over — 
need hardly be considered. Not until we were within 
a cable’s length of their poop did he bring White 
Wings to — and there we lay, rolling to a gentle 
swell, half the hands on deck, some on the rigging, 
the officers with Timothy and myself on the bridge, 
as amazed a company as sailed the Atlantic that day. 

I have told you that the contending parties upon 
the deck of the rogue had taken their stands respec- 
tively at the fo’castle and by the superstructure 
amidships. This seemed to point to the conclusion 
that the seamen of the ship had mutinied upon their 
officers; and Larry, I found, to be of my opinion. 

“ The hands have turned it up and the dead-weight 
is going under,” said he, with an indifference to the 
suffering we witnessed I had hardly looked for; 
“ I shouldn’t wonder if you are responsible, sir. 
A thieves’ crew is for fair weather. Let a cloud 
263 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


come up as big as a man’s hand and they’ll run for 
port though Davy Jones takes the tiller. They’ve 
had enough of it — any man could see that with half 
an eye. And God help the Jew if he hauls down 
his flag ! ” 

“You mean, Larry, that we have got on their 
nerves and they can’t stand us any more. I shouldn’t 
wonder. They think we have support behind, and 
are waiting for a government ship. That must be 
it; but, if so, what do they want Imroth to do? Is 
it to run to port? They would hardly expect to 
land without trouble.” 

“ Men like that never know what they want, 
doctor. Did you ever see a Malay run amuck ? Well, 
I’ve been round the corner of a plantation hut when 
a yellow devil was taken with the idea that the exer- 
cise was good for him, and mighty quick I skipped, 
to be sure. That man wanted nothing in particular. 
It was an Eastern way of tearing up newspapers and 
smashing the crockery. Those fellows yonder don’t 
know what’s the matter with them, and they are go- 
ing to cut up the Jew to see. I wish ’em luck, but 
I’d sooner be aboard here than eating macaroons on 
their deck, and that’s the truth of it. Ask Mr. 
McShanus what he thinks. Perhaps he’d like to put 
off in a small boat ? ” 

I looked at Timothy, and saw that he was as white 
as the planks on which he stood. Viewed from afar, 
264 


SEVEN DAYS LATER 

the spectacle had been one of fire and smoke and 
imagined fury. But proximity made of it a picture 
of savage bloodshed, revolting in its fury and grue- 
some in its detail. One incident stands out in my 
mind, horrible beyond others, yet an example of 
many the day was to show me. I recollect that just 
as we brought the yacht to, a man tried to creep out 
of the big cabin amidships, which plainly sheltered 
many of the Jew’s party on the Diamond Ship. The 
seamen by the fo’castle spied him immediately, and 
one of them fired a pistol at him — it was evident that 
the bullet struck him in the shoulder, for he clapped 
his hand there quickly, and then, trying to run to 
his comrades, he fell heavily upon deck. Now began 
a scene such as I hope never again to witness. The 
wounded man lay upon the deck, hidden from our 
sight of course, but plainly the object of a violent 
combat. On one side were his friends making fran- 
tic efforts to drag him to safety; on the other, the 
frenzied seamen shooting blindly at the place where 
they believed him to lie, and so at once preventing 
his escape and the approach of his companions. 
Baffled in their desire to kill him out of hand — for 
the corner of the cabin amidships prevented that — 
they, nevertheless, so frightened him that he lay 
cowed like a wounded bird; and thus afraid to rise 
to his feet, or to make any effort to save himself, one 
of the hands from the fo’castle crept round the 
265 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


superstructure presently and deliberately cast a 
grappling anchor over the poor fellow’s body. In 
an instant, now, the sailors had their victim. How 
the anchor had caught him, whether by the flesh or 
by his clothes, my position upon the bridge forbade 
me to see; but I could clearly perceive the hands 
pulling upon the rope, and hear the ferocious exulta- 
tion which such success provoked. Yard by yard 
they dragged the man to his doom. A quick imagi- 
nation could depict him clinging madly to the comb- 
ing of the forward hatch, clutching at the capstan 
and the windlass, contesting every inch of that ter- 
rible journey at whose end a score of unclasped 
knives awaited him. For myself, I turned my eyes 
away when the moment came, and shut my ears to 
the dying man’s cry as it rang out in fearful dread 
of death over the hushed waters. They had killed 
him now; and while their shouts of triumph still 
echoed in the still air, they flung the body overboard, 
and it sank immediately from our sight. Such was 
their vengeance ; such the punishment for what 
wrong, inflicted or imaginary, we knew not, nor 
cared to ask. 

A great silence fell during the after moments of 
this tragedy, as though awe of it had compelled a 
mutual truce between the combatants. I do not 
know precisely at what moment Larry gave the 
order, but certain it is that the yacht began to steam 
266 


SEVEN DAYS LATER 


slowly away from the ship when the dead man’s body 
fell into the sea ; and having made a wide detour, we 
raced at some speed presently almost due south as 
though pursuit of us had already begun. This was 
a course I could not protest against. Let the rogues 
agree and our position was precarious indeed. Larry 
had perceived as much, and wisely stood away from 
them. 

“ They’ll be kissing each other if they spy us out,” 
said he. ‘‘ I don’t believe they’ve any shell for the 
big guns, doctor, but they could do a power of mis- 
chief with the monkeys on the tops. We are as well 
off in the gallery as the stalls, especially in between 
times. Let us stand by where we shan’t amuse them 
so much.” 

The wisdom of it forbade reply. We had pushed 
rashness to the last extremity, and had come to no 
hurt. The truce over yonder was unmistakable. 
When the steward reminded me that none of us had 
taken any breakfast, I heard him patiently. 

“ Bring it to the deck,” I rejoined. 

And so four silent men — for Mr. Benson had 
joined us — sat about the table beneath the aft awn- 
ing, and each, fearing to express the great hope 
which animated him, sipped his coffee methodically 
and spoke of commonplace things. 

267 


18 


CHAPTER XXVII 


DR. FABOS BOARDS THE DIAMOND SHIP 

Our surmise that the rogues would agree pres- 
ently among themselves and fall upon us for their 
common satisfaction was not supported by the facts. 
We breakfasted at our leisure, and smoked a full 
pipe upon it, still unmolested and apparently unob- 
served. It may be that they had become accustomed 
to our presence. For seven days and nights now 
we had harassed them unceasingly. By messages, 
by gunshots, by our searchlight, had we pursued 
that policy of persistence which, we believed, would 
most surely demoralize and defeat them. And they 
had been powerless to harm us; helpless before our 
attack, as I judged from the first that they would be. 

They fired no shot at us, and the morning passed 
in patient waiting. Great as our hopes were — my 
own too great for any expression — the Diamond 
Ship had no further message for us, nor did the sea 
speak. Void from horizon to horizon, the Southern 
ocean fretted to sleep beneath a torrid sun, and left 
us with that sense of isolation from the world and 
268 


FABOS BOARDS THE SHIP 


from men which the great sea alone can inspire. 
Some among us, it may be, had fallen almost to 
despair when the rogues set to again. This would 
have been at three bells of the afternoon watch. 
A gunshot heard faintly across the waters appeared 
to be the signal for some new attack. I heard the 
rattling echoes of a volley, and, upon that, a second 
and a third. Our glasses showed us a great press 
of men engaged almost hand to hand amidships. 
Then a haze of smoke settled down upon the ship, 
and for many minutes it hid her completely from our 
sight. 

You may imagine with what beating hearts and 
almost breathless hopes we watched this second en- 
counter and waited for its issue. Very wisely, Larry 
would not approach the scene a second time, or risk 
again those perils we had so readily faced before. 
Whatever harvest we might reap, our garners would 
be as readily filled afar as by any mad concession to 
curiosity which should drive us within the danger 
zone. If the rogues were killing each other, as evi- 
dently they were, it could serve us not at all to wit- 
ness the horrors of that tragedy or seek in some 
vague way to take part in it. As for its deeper 
meaning, I had from the first clenched my thoughts 
against that, and refused to take cognizance of it. 
The knowledge that Joan Fordibras was the prisoner 
of such a crew, that other decent women might be 
^69 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 

aboard the Diamond Ship with her — that, I say, had 
I permitted it once to master me, would have brought 
me to such a state of frenzy that no sane act after- 
wards could have atoned for its follies. Earnestly, 
persistently, I strove to drive the truth away and 
to blind my eyes to it. “ She is not on the ship,” 
I would say ; or, again, “ They will not harm her, 
for she alone stands between them and the gallows.” 
God knows how much of a pretense it was ; and 
yet, I think, the very effect of will brought salvation 
to us. A mad attack upon them would have undone 
all. I realize to-day the good providence which saved 
me from that. 

Now, we had been waiting all this time for the 
smoke to lift from the hull of the leviathan, and 
permit us to see, as far as it might be seen at such 
a distance, that which happened upon those woful 
decks. As for the curtain of the vapor, it was but 
a spur to the imagination, a terrible cloud interposed 
between our burning eyes and those scenes of horror 
and of bloodshed it hid from us. Rifleshots we heard 
incessantly — now in volleys, again by twos and 
threes, then once more in a general exchange which 
seemed to speak of the crisis of battle. Nor might 
we argue a good omen of the stillness which fell 
afterwards, for surely it could be nothing else 
than the silence of victory, the final triumph of one 
faction above the others. This I pointed out to 

no 


FABOS BOARDS THE SHIP 


Larry as we lifted our glasses for the twentieth 
time, unavailingly. 

“ I take it that the men are up against the rogues, 
Larry. We could wish for nothing better than news 
of their success ! ” 

“ You think so, sir.? ” 

“ I trust a seaman before a landshark any day, 
whatever his ship or nationahty. He is more likely 
to honor a woman, Larry — there will be some meas- 
ure of honesty in him ; and if it is put to the vote, he 
will haul down that flag the first time he is asked. 
Why should he not.? He has nothing to fear ashore. 
The rogues keep him afloat. I’d wager a hundred 
guineas that homesickness began this fight and will 
carry it to a conclusion — that is, if the seamen 
win ” 

“ And if they do not, sir .? ” 

“ Then God help the ship, Larry ! — she will not 
be afloat a week.” 

McShanus interposed to say that they were be- 
tween the devil and the deep sea, surely. I found 
him wonderfully serious. It is odd to think how 
many cheery fellows, who write gayly of life and 
death in the newspaper, have never seen a gun fired 
in earnest or looked unflinchingly upon the face of 
death. 

“ ’Tis a coward I was ! ” said he, “ and not ashamed 
of it. This very minute I tremble like a woman, 
271 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


though ’tis often of kindness a woman trembles and 
not of fears. Look yonder at the smoke lifting from 
off the face of the ship! What lies under it, my 
friends.'^ — God Almighty! what are those feeling 
and thinking and suffering now that they are going 
to their Maker? ’Tis as though I myself had been 
called this instant to remember that I shall be as 
they, who knows when, who knows how? A cruel 
torment of a thought — God help me for it ! ” 

Here was a McShanus mood to be laughed off, and 
that it would have been, but for the panorama sud- 
denly disclosed by the soaring smoke which gradually 
lifted from the face of the hidden ship. Now was 
it clear in a twinkling that the seamen (as I sup- 
posed would be the case) had obtained the upper 
hand and were become the masters of the vessel. 
We could see them clearly by our glasses, running 
hither and thither, from the fo’castle to the poop, 
in and out of the companion hatch; now up, now 
down, sometimes in single combat with one or other 
of the vanquished; again slashing in a glut of mad 
desire at a prostrate figure or an enemy already 
dead. What weapons they had I found it quite im- 
possible to say. From time to time, it is true, a pistol 
was discharged as though it were at some lurking 
or hidden foe; but, in the main, I believe they must 
just have used common marline spikes, or had gone 
to it with their clasp knives in their hands. And 
272 


FABOS BOARDS THE SHIP 


their anger, however it had been provoked, defied all 
words to measure. As beasts to the carcass, so they 
returned again and again to the bodies of those 
whom they had destroyed. We espied victors in all 
the attitudes of bravado and defiance, dancing, leap- 
ing, even striking at each other. And this endured 
so great a while that I began to say the holocaust 
would go on to the end, and hardly a man of them 
live to tell the tale. 

This fearful encounter ceased finally about four 
o’clock of the afternoon watch. Ironically enough, 
I heard them strike eight bells just as though it had 
been upon a ship in good order at sea; and as the 
sound came floating over the water to us, I reflected 
upon the amazing force of habit which governs a 
sailor even in the most terrible of situations. 

“ Larry,” I said, “ they would change the watch 
even if the sea dried up. What’s to be done now; 
what, in God’s name, can we do.? I’d go aboard if 
it were not criminal to take the risk. That’s not to 
be thought of — a man would be safer in a lion’s den 
at present. And yet think of what it must be over 
there ” 

“ I’ve been trying not to think of it all along, sir. 
Whatever’s happened, it’s over now. They’re put- 
ting the dead overboard and, what’s more, launching 
a boat. I shouldn’t wonder if they came along- 
side, sir.” 


273 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


“ Alongside us, Larry? That would be something 
new. Do you really mean it ? ” 

“ You must judge for yourself, sir.” 

We put up our glasses, Timothy declaring, as 
usual, that there was a plaster across the end of his 
(for he never learned to use the telescope), and fol- 
lowed with new interest the movements of the vic- 
torious seamen. Certainly, they were putting the 
dead overboard and, as Larry had perceived, they 
had lowered a boat. Possessed, I supposed, of what 
they thought to be a fine idea (for seamen are gre- 
garious beyond all others), they presently lowered 
a second boat and, upon this, a third. Some one 
firing a gun to call our attention, they next 
flagged a message to us, so plainly honest that 
I caused it to be answered without a moment’s loss 
of time. 

“We want help ! Stand by to pick up a boat ! ” 
To this our reply fluttered out, that we would per- 
mit their boat to come alongside; and the more to 
encourage them, we steamed toward the great ship, 
and met them when they were little more than the 
half of a mile distant from it. There were seven 
men in all, I made out, and a little lad at the tiller, 
the boat itself being an ordinary lifeboat, painted 
white, but ill-kept and shabby. As to the nationality 
of its crew, I could detect a huge nigger at the bow 
oar and another man of color amidships, while the 
274 


FABOS BOARDS THE SHIP 


rest were mostly dark skinned, and one I took to be 
an Egyptian. Whoever they were, they came toward 
us with great spirit, as though pleased to be free of 
the shambles they had quitted and very anxious to 
deliver some message. In this we encouraged them, 
lowering a gangway and bidding them send a spokes- 
man aboard, which they did immediately without any 
parley or suspicion, so that I no longer doubted 
their honesty or even considered the possibility of 
a trap. 

“ Let Bill Evans go up ! ” was their cry ; and sure 
enough up came a ferret-faced, red- whiskered, sim- 
ple-looking fellow who answered to this very English 
designation. Standing in an odd attitude before us, 
shuffling his feet nervously and fingering a broad- 
brimmed felt hat, William Evans certainly expressed 
himself with difiiculty. 

“ Mates,” he said, “ Pd be very obliged to know 
if you carry a doctor on this ship ? ” 

Larry looked at me, but I made no response. We 
must hear much, I reflected, before we answered such 
a question as that. 

“ Is that your message, sir? ” Larry asked, a little 
severely. 

Again the man thumbed his hat, and continued, 
parrotlike : 

“ I’d be obliged to know if you carry a doctor on 
this ship. That’s first. We’re in a clove-hitch, and 
275 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


no mistake. Some’s gone, and that’s an end of them. 
The rest would be thankful for a doctor, and there’s 
no denying it. Mates, if you’re Christian men, 
you’ll come aboard and help poor seamen ! ” 

His candor was really remarkable. I thought 
it quite time to take up his cross-examination 
myself. 

“ Come,” I said, “ we must know more about it 
than that. What ship is yonder, and who is in com- 
mand of her.? Answer my questions properly and it 
is possible that we may help you. There has been 
a mutiny and you have the upper hand. Why should 
we take any part in it.? ” 

He looked up at me — a foxy look, I thought — ^and 
stumbled through as strange a narrative as I have 
ever heard. 

“ Old Salt Horse went oflp in the relief,” he began, 
and I knew he meant Imroth thereby ; “ Captain Ross 

has been first since. He was for lying in this 

hair oil of a sea; we was for going ashore. That’s 

what the lady wanted, and d n me! who was to 

stand agen it. Eight months have me and my mates 

been floating about this ocean like a flock of 

ducks. Did I ship with Salt Horse for that.? As 
true as God’s in Heaven, I come from London Road, 
Plymouth, and Bill Evans is my name, same as my 
father and mother before me. You come aboard 
and do what you can for us, and we sail the ship to 
216 


FABOS BOARDS THE SHIP 


Rio. No harm comes to the young lady, but she 
stops aboard until we’re ashore, and that’s my last 
word, if I swing for it ! ” 

The man had become bolder as he went on, and 
now he threw his hat defiantly upon the deck and 
looked at us all as though he had been an ambassador 
carrying a message to a king. Perchance he but 
little understood the significance of his words or the 
surpassing interest with which I heard them. Val 
Imroth escaped! All well with my little Joan — how 
could it be otherwise, since they asked us aboard! 
Here were two facts which changed in an instant the 
whole complexion of our schemes and shattered them 
to the very base. I no longer thought of plan or 
prudence or any human consideration at all, but that 
of carrying to Joan Fordibras the tidings of her 
safety, so far as that safety lay within our power 
to insure. I must board the Diamond Ship. At any 
cost, I must speak with Joan! 

“ Larry ! ” I cried, shouting it out so that those 
in the boat below could hear every word of it, 
“ Larry, I am going to help these men ! Stand by 
for my signal! If there is any treachery, you will 
know what to do. Show this man what we carry — 
let there be no mistake about it ! They sink or swim — 
no half measure, Larry ! So help me Heaven, I will 
send them to the bottom in less than five minutes if 
they so much as think a word against me ! ” 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


Larry’s answer was to command our own crew to 
lower the launch and to stand by the guns. Delay- 
ing only to call Okyada to my side, I followed the 
strange ambassador down the gangway stairs and 
began my voyage to the great ship. 


278 


CHAPTER XXVIII 


THE STRONG ROOM OF THE OCEAN 

The boat’s crew laid to their oars with a hearty 
will directly I gave them the word, and we shot over 
the still waters almost with the speed of a steamer’s 
launch. It was a new experience for me to find my- 
self afloat upon the Atlantic in a small boat, and I 
confess, even in such fair weather, not wholly a pleas- 
ant one. The long rollers, alternately lifting us to 
prodigious heights and plunging us as to a very 
abyss of the ocean, shut in turn both ships from my 
view and permitted me but a rare glimpse of them 
as we rose upon the crest of some rolling wave which 
seemed about to engulf us utterly. I realized, as all 
seamen realize from time to time, the meaning of 
man’s victory over the sea and the splendor of it. 
And excitement carried me without distress where I 
would have feared to go upon a common day. 

I was about to see my little J oan again ! Unless 
this man had lied to me, so much must be beyond 
question. I should find her on the great ship and 
take her, at last and finally, from this hive of ruf- 
fians into which the accidents of life had cast her 

279 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


from her very childhood. Much as she had suffered, 
it remained my hope that her own courage and the 
circumstances of her presence upon the ship had in 
part saved her from that nameless evil which might 
otherwise have most certainly been her fate. Imroth 
had kept the child from harm — that I firmly be- 
lieved; and Imroth having fled, the terror of his 
name might still be powerful to save her. Herein 
lay the supreme consolation as our voyage drew to 
its end and every rolling crest showed us more 
clearly the immense hull, standing up from the water 
like a very Castle Impregnable. I was the bearer 
of a message to Joan Fordibras, and she should 
be the first there to whom the story of succour must 
be told. There could be no purpose dearer to me, or 
one I embarked upon so gladly. 

The sun had been upon the point of setting when 
I quitted the yacht, and a chill of evening fell with 
an aftermath of drifting mist as the men drove the 
long boat up to the ship. My first impression — for 
I had never before viewed a big steamer from a small 
boat on the open sea — was one of a vast, towering 
immensity, rising sheer above me as the wall of a 
fortress or the black precipice of a mountain. The 
ladder itself, by which I must gain the deck, swung 
fragile as a thread from a boom amidships. No 
steam came from the ship’s valves, although the 
bilge was flowing freely. I could detect no sound 
280 


THE OCEAN’S STRONG ROOM 


of movement or human activity; nothing but the 
appearance of three or four pale, anxious faces at 
the gangway above allowed me to say that the ship 
had a crew at all. These men, however, waited for 
my coming with an expectancy which was almost 
pathetic ; and scarcely had I climbed the ladder than 
they surrounded me immediately with such piteous 
entreaty to come to their comrades’ aid that my own 
imperious question sounded abrupt almost to the 
point of harshness. 

“ You have a lady upon this ship — where is she.?^ ” 

“ She has gone, sir.” 

“ Gone — good God ! how can she be gone ? ” 

‘‘We knew what you would ask and sent down to 
her cabin a quarter of an hour ago, sir. She was not 
there. Mr. Colin Ross, him that commands for Mr. 
Imroth, he says he knows nothing of it. It’s true 
as heaven, sir, the lady’s come to no harm by us, nor 
would have done if she had been aboard here twenty 
3^ears. There wasn’t a man that wouldn’t have given 
his life for her. We don’t know where she is, sir, 
and that’s gospel truth.” 

Imagine the scene. I stood upon the open deck 
of the strangest steamer I have yet set foot upon 
— a steamer so splendidly fitted and furnished, as one 
glance told me, that no Atlantic liner, whatever com- 
pany floated her, could have claimed a greater ele- 
gance. The bridge above me had the neatness, the 
281 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


shining brass, the white ladders of a man-of-wars- 
man. The guns were polished to the last possibility. 
Every cabin into which I looked appeared to boast 
the luxury and equipment of a state saloon on a 
Cunard or a White Star boat. I perceived an im- 
mense dining hall aft and a companionway not un- 
suited to a 10,000-ton steamer. There were boats 
abundantly, safety rafts — the usual equipment 
of an ocean-going vessel, and yet, in the strongest 
contrast, something which differentiated this ship 
from any other I had ever visited and placed her at 
once in a category apart. This was nothing more 
nor less than a screen of solid steel bars, ten feet 
high, perhaps, and defended by forbidding spikes, 
sharp as swords and impossible to fend, a screen cut- 
ting the vessel into two clear divisions, and obviously 
the Jew’s protection against all others who sailed 
with him. I judged at once that the men lived for- 
ward of this screen ; Imroth and his chosen company, 
aft. A wicket gate, just large enough to admit the 
body of a man, permitted communication between 
the divisions; but the steelwork itself appeared to 
be carried cunningly over the bulwarks in a manner 
that must have rendered the aft cabins absolutely 
secure, not only against the seamen collectively, but 
against any spy among them who had the fancy to 
watch the Jew in his less suspicious moments. 

This wicket gate, be it said, stood open when I 

282 


THE OCEAN’S STRONG ROOM 


climbed to the main deck, and the men now passed to 
and fro at their will. The more horrible aspect of 
the picture did not immediately present itself to my 
notice. I was some minutes aboard before my eyes 
discerned the huddled figures of men, some propped 
in bent attitudes against the bulwarks, some already 
dead, a few crying horribly in the agony of mutilation. 
As the scene unfolded itself, the woe of it became 
more terrible to witness. There were sailors of many 
nationalities here, chiefly, I perceived, from South 
European and Mediterranean ports, Turks in their 
native dress, sturdy Greeks, Tunisians, seamen from 
Algiers and the Adriatic. Of those who crowded 
about me unwounded, two were Americans, one a 
nigger, a third a little Frenchman who gabbled to 
the point of delirium. The appeal, however, was 
common to all. 

Help our friends, doctor — save them, for God’s 
sake! We have no doctor on board. Herr Klein 
sailed with Mr. Imroth. We can do nothing for 
ourselves.” 

The woe of it appalled me. I knew neither what 
to answer them or how best to help them. Many a 
day had passed since I practiced my own profession. 
And to be called upon as a surgeon upon a battle- 
field! 

‘‘ Have you stores ? ” I asked. “ Is there a surgery 
on board ” 


19 


28S 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


They shouted an affirmative altogether. Half a 
dozen among them were ready to lead me below. 
Hesitating an instant to give my command to Oky- 
ada, I went with them as they desired. 

“ Miss Joan is on the ship,” I said to the faithful 
fellow; “find her and take her to the yacht.” 

Okyada looked up at me with one swift, almost 
wistful, glance, and disappeared immediately from 
my sight. The burly American who posed as my 
guide, pushing his comrades aside, led me through 
the wicket gate, and we descended the great com- 
panionway. It would be impossible adequately to 
describe the luxury and the splendor of this part of 
the ship even as one brief scrutiny revealed it. The 
very lamps appeared to be of solid silver. The panel- 
ing was of the rarest woods, teak and old Spanish 
mahogany and satin-wood. I caught a glimpse of 
the great dining saloon, and beheld walls covered by 
pictures of undoubted mark and quality — chiefly of 
the French and Spanish schools. We passed by a 
boudoir furnished with such elegance that Paris 
alone could have commanded its ensemble. There 
was a card room not unlike that of a great London 
club, with little tables, and electric lamps upon them, 
and even discarded packs scattered in angry dis- 
order upon the blue Persian carpet which covered 
a parquet floor. Crossing this room, and leaving it 
by a door toward the center of the ship, I found 
284 


THE OCEAN’S STRONG ROOM 


myself immediately in a broad corridor lighted from 
above, and the walls of this appeared to be of steel. 
Had I been in doubt as to the meaning of it, the 
American’s candor would have settled the matter 
without question. 

“ Old Five A’s strong-box,” said he — “ that’s 
where he keeps what isn’t good to eat. I guess the 
best of the stuff’s landed by this time. It went off 
in Colin Ross’s ship. You might buy yourself a 
gold brick out of what’s left and not be much poorer. 
We share and share in that now. There used to be 
a guard down here night and day when old Isaac was 
aboard. I guess you scared him pretty badly. He 
ran for the Brazils the day after we sighted you.” 

I asked him but one question in turn. 

“ Was General Fordibras on board with the man 
you speak oi? ” 

“ Not this trip. I heard tell he’d gone to Europe. 
He’s too easy for this job. Three Fingers never 
could look a Sheffield knife in the face. I guess his 
daughter’s got all the courage.” 

We had passed another door of steel as he spoke 
and descended a short flight of stairs to a second 
corridor, about which were cabins of a commoner 
order. Here the surgery of the ship had been lo- 
cated — a well-fitted, thoroughly modern apartment, 
recently tenanted, it seemed, by a doctor who knew 
what the hospitals of Europe were doing. A quick 
285 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


search discovered the antiseptics, the wool, the lini- 
ment, and the lancets, without which so little could 
be done for the wounded men above. There was 
nothing missing for the practice of a modern art. 

It would be a work of supererogation to tell you 
of the long hours which followed immediately upon 
my assumption of the role of ship’s doctor. I passed 
through them as one passes through a dreamland 
of restless thoughts. There were no less than thirty- 
one wounded men upon the steamer, and of these 
seven belonged to the fo’castle party, twenty-four 
to the saloons. The latter chained my interests in 
spite of their condition, for there were Englishmen 
among them and faces that the stories of recent 
crimes had made familiar to me. One lad, slashed 
heavily across the forehead by a clasp knife, had 
been mentioned, I remembered, in connection with the 
famous forgeries upon the Bank of England some 
five years ago. I recognized the Italian jewel thief 
Detucchi, the German forger Urich, the young Bel- 
gian Monterry, supposed to be serving a sentence 
of penal servitude for life for his attack upon King 
Leopold. Happily, few of these men had been 
wounded by rifle bullets. Those whom the guns had 
killed fell upon the instant, and their bodies were 
already in the sea. My patients were the victims of 
cuts, fearful gashes in some cases and difficult frac- 
tures in others. Two died while I tried to help them. 

286 


TlIE OCEAN’S STRONG ROOM 


It was a woful task, and I trust that I may never be 
called to its fellow. 

The honest men, happily — for so I called the sail- 
ors of the ship — had suffered considerably less. I 
found them profoundly grateful for such serv- 
ices as I could render them; nor did the Ameri- 
can hesitate to tell me frankly the story of the 
mutiny. 

“We were for making Rio, but Mr. Ross stood 
out,” he said. “ A relief’s expected, and I guess 
there are some law-sick folk on board her. He 
treated us like dirt and began to talk of rafting. 
Do you know what rafting is, doctor — no ; well, it’s 
putting living men overboard on a raft as big as 
a deal board and wishing ’em good luck while they 
go. Don’t try it while you can sail saloon. Colin 
Ross fell sick of a fever, and is down below, raving 
now. We got the arms by tickling the mate’s whis- 
kers and promising him Ross’s berth. That was the 
first and the last of it. We shot ’em down like sheep, 
and now we’re going ashore to spend our money 
— those that live, though they’re like to be few 
enough.” 

Here was a truth beyond all question. I stood on 
the deck of a veritable plague ship. A wail of death 
rose unceasingly. Night had come down, and a thick 
white mist enveloped the ocean all about us. The 
yacht was nowhere to be seen. Of all the hours of 
287 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


that great endeavor, this to me was the worst, alike 
in its menace and its suggestion. 

For I said that the yacht might lose me in the fog 
and leave me, the prisoner of these desperate men 
and their hostage against the justice which awaited 
them. 


288 


CHAPTER XXIX 


THE BRIDGE AND AFTERWARDS 

I WAS in a situation of grave peril; but it would 
have been imprudent beyond measure to have ad- 
mitted it. Possibly the accident of their advantage 
did not occur to the men, nor had they discovered it. 
There was no order on the ship, no commander, no 
person in authority above others. The agony of 
wounds forbade any consideration of that which 
should be done or of the methods of doing it. I 
perceived that the men regarded me in some sense 
as their good angel, paying me the compliment of 
trusting me, and obeying my commands as faithfully 
as if I had been their captain. They could even re- 
member that I had gone fasting, and speak of food 
and drink. 

“ Old Valentine knew a good tap when he tasted 
it, and there’s plenty of the right sort on board,” 
the American said to me good-naturedly. “ You’ve 
only got to give a name to it and the corks will be 
flying like rockets. Ask for what you’re wanting, 
doctor, and I’ll skin the lubber who doesn’t run to 
fetch it. God knows what my mates would have done 
if you hadn’t come among them.” 

289 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


It was honestly said, and as honestly meant. And 
yet, willingly as I would have accepted his cordial 
offer, fear of the consequences held me back. Who 
would dare to think of drink amid such a crew as 
this, or to remind it that drink was to be had? I 
could depict a Saturnalia defying the powers of a 
Poe to describe, such an orgie as a sane man might 
dream of in a horrid sleep, should these men broach 
the casks or be reminded of the spirits which the 
ship carried. My immediate anxiety was rather to 
divert their thoughts from my own situation, and to 
lead them to regard me rather as one of themselves 
than a stranger. As for the mystery of my little 
Joan’s disappearance from the ship, the excuses 
which had been made to me, and the obvious sincerity 
of them, I knew no more than the dead what these 
might mean. While at one time I would doubt if she 
had ever been on the ship at all — plainly as I had 
thought to have seen her there — there were other 
moods in which I could almost believe that these ruf- 
fians had killed her, and that she also must be num- 
bered among the victims of the night. This, however, 
would mark a moment of despair, to be forgotten very 
readily when action called me to some new task. 
These men had sworn that Joan lived. Why should 
I question a sincerity which all my observation de- 
clared to be genuine? 

So thus the matter stood when darkness came down 

290 


THE BRIDGE 


and the fog lay thick about the Diamond Ship. 
Okyada, my servant, had vanished unaccountably, 
nor had I heard a single word concerning him since 
we came on board together. The yacht had dis- 
appeared from my ken, and the shrewdest eyes could 
not detect her situation, or the quickest ears give 
news of her. In these trying circumstances, I wel- 
comed a request from one of the seamen that I would 
visit Colin Ross, the captain of the vessel, and until 
lately the representative of Valentine Imroth, aboard 
her. This man I found lying grievously wounded 
by a bullet which had entered, the left lung and pene- 
trated in such an ugly fashion, that his life must be 
but a question of hours. It was not an unpleasant 
face, nor a manner in any way repellant. I told 
him frankly, when he asked me, that he could not 
live, and he answered with a wan smile that was al- 
most a sob. 

‘‘ Good God ! sir,” he said, “ how little any man, 
who makes a beginning on a crooked road, ever sees 
the end of it. I was the captain of a Shields col- 
lier two years ago, doing well, and calling my home 
my own. When Mr. Imroth found me out, I would 
no more have done a shabby thing than harmed my 
httle baby girl, who’s waiting for me in Newcastle 
now. Money bought me — I’ll not deny it. I prom- 
ised to run this ship to the Brazils for a thousand 
guineas, and there’s Imroth’s seal upon it on the 
291 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


table yonder. You may not believe me, but what 
the story of this business is, how these men came 
here, or why they have come, I know no better than 
the Pope of Rome — and thaPs the truth if my life’s 
the price of it. And yet, sir, that it’s a bad busi- 
ness I’d be a fool to deny. He who touches pitch 
gets plenty on his fingers. I knew that Val Imroth 
was a bad lot the first day I saw him — and bad 
enough are his companions on this ship. Why, good 
God! there’d have been murder done every day if it 
hadn’t been for fear of the man and his words. He 
puts a palsy on you when you hear his step — his 
breath’s a fiame of hell — this crowd shivered at his 
look. It’s fear of him that’s kept them quiet since 
he ran for shore; it’s fear of him which will sell 
them all to the dock in the end, as sure as I lie 
here telling you so.” 

I cannot conceal the fact that this interview af- 
fected me greatly. Here was a robust British sailor, 
a man of thirty-five years of age, perhaps, brown- 
haired, blue-eyed, and of an open cast of counte- 
nance, about to give up his life and to pass forever 
from the love which awaited him in England, because 
a monster had breathed a breath upon him, and had 
cried in his ears the fables of the gold. Hundreds 
of men as innocent as this man were exiles from wife 
and children to-day, outcasts, jailbirds, suspects, 
human derelicts, because of this devilish net which 
292 


THE BRIDGE 


had enmeshed them, of these criminal arms which had 
embraced them, and this voice of lust which charmed 
them. Many a man have I seen die — but not as this 
seaman died, with a child’s name upon his lips and 
a child’s image before his eyes. Of what avail to 
speak at such a moment of the eternal hope in the 
justice of an Almighty and all merciful God, or to 
recite those platitudes in which pious folk take 
refuge. Colin Ross was thinkirg of the child who 
nevermore would call him father, or by him be called 
child again. 

This, however, is to anticipate the hour. There 
was much upon which I would gladly have questioned 
the man, but little that he had the strength to an- 
swer me. Just as the seamen had sworn that it was 
all well with Joan, so did he bear them out with 
such emphasis as his failing strength could command. 

‘‘ We were to make the Brazils and take a pas- 
sage for Miss Joan to London. Her father. Gen- 
eral Fordibras, is there, doctor. If harm has come 
to her, it is since I left the deck. The men wor- 
shipped her — there are rogues enough, I grant you, 
who would have had their say, but I shot the first 
dead with my own hand, and the men answered for 
the second, God help him. You’ll find Miss Joan 
all right, and take her back to her father. For the 
rest, I can’t advise you, sir. You are safe enough 
on board here while this trouble is new — but when 
293 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 

it’s past, save yourself, for God’s sake ; for your life 
will not be worth a minute’s purchase. Remember 
what’s at stake if this ship makes a port and you are 
there to give an account of her. Hands and pas- 
sengers alike will prevent that. No, doctor, get 
aboard your yacht while you can, and leave these 
men to their destiny.” 

He spoke with much dignity, though it is hardly 
necessary for me to say that I had travelled already 
upon such lines of thought as he laid down. When 
I left him, it was with a promise to see his wife and 
child in Newcastle, and to give them what comfort 
I could — but chiefly to keep the story of the darker 
hour away from them; for, as he said, “ they hold 
my name dear.” He had but a few moments to live 
then, and that merciful euthanasia which is fre- 
quently the handmaiden of death, as long experience 
has shown to me, rapidly came upon him and left 
him but the passing dreams of a sleep which all must 
know, and from which all must awake. 

Now this befell, I suppose, about eleven o’clock 
that night. There was still much mist when I came 
upon deck, but it had lifted to the northward, and 
the atmosphere was everywhere clearing. I had 
some expectation of spying out the yacht should the 
breeze strengthen, and yet there was no hour of 
all that emprise which found me in such a desolation 
of spirit or so doubtful of the ultimate issue. Why 


THE BRIDGE 


had my friends made no effort to reach me? What 
kept them? Why did they leave me here at the 
mercy of these cutthroats, my life as a gossamer 
which any puff of anger might destroy, my liberty 
in these ruffians’ keeping? Sober reason would have 
replied that they could have done nothing else; but 
this was not the time for reason, and, indeed, I came 
to call it the darkest hour of them all. Vainly I 
raged against my own acts and the judgment which 
had carried me on board the ship. It had been mad- 
ness to come; it would be madness to let the men 
know as much. Already I was aware of a disposition 
to treat me with less respect — it may have been pure 
imagination, but the idea came into my head, and 
a brief conversation with the American did nothing 
to displace it. 

“ I am going aboard my own yacht,” I said to 
him — that would have been about the hour of mid- 
night. “ I am going aboard my yacht, but I will 
return at daybreak and see what more I can do. 
Mr. Ross says that you are heading for the Brazils. 
That is no affair of mine. The man I want is no 
longer on the ship. I have no concern with the 
others nor they with me. Let us put things as 
straight as we can — and then talk about the shore.” 

This should not have been said. It occurred to 
me almost as I uttered the words, that the man had 
not hitherto thought about the yacht at all; but 
295 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


no sooner had I spoken than he stepped to the gang- 
way and immediately realized the situation. 

“ Guess your people have gone hay-making, doc- 
tor,” he said far from pleasantly. “Well, I don’t 
suppose it matters much anyway. My mates want 
you pretty badly, and while they want you, I guess 
you’ll have to stop. Just step down and take an- 
other look at Harry Johnson, will you.^ He’s raving 
like a fool-woman in the Doldrums. You can turn 
in by and by — I’ll see what Williams can do for you 
— though it’s forward you must swing your ham- 
mock, and no two opinions about that.” 

To this I answered, in a tone as decisive as his 
own, that my comings and my goings would be or- 
dered by none but myself, and that his friend must 
await his turn. A long acquaintance with rogues 
has convinced me that any weakness of civility is lost 
upon them, and that firmness to the point of bru- 
tality is the only weapon. I would have shot this 
man dead had he given me an impudent answer, and 
his surprise when he heard me speak was something 
to see. 

“No offense, doctor,” he said quickly. “ I’ll tell 
Harry you’ll be along presently. Don’t think as 
we’re not obliged to you for what you’ve done. The 
boys are ready enough to tell you so. You take 
your own time, and do what’s best pleasing to you. 
There’s work enough, God Almighty knows.” 

S96 


THE BRIDGE 


He spat his filthy tobacco juice into the sea, and, 
turning upon his heel, went forward to join his 
companions by the fo’castle. A scene so weird is 
not within my memory. Depict the gray drifting 
mists upon the water, the silvery waves in those 
lakes of radiance the moonbeams could create, the 
stillness of the ship, the prone forms of men whose 
sobs and groans marked the intervals of sounds, the 
lanterns set about the decks, the great mast loom- 
ing above, the spars and yards, and the monster bulk 
of the funnel. And this ship, remember, was a house 
of sanctuary to all the friends of crime who should 
bow the knee to Valentine Imroth, and come to him 
with plunder in their hands ! 

What stories could not its cabins tell! What 
crimes had been committed — murder and lust and 
shedding of blood — what awful cries had gone up 
from its decks, the cries of strong men at the gate 
of death, of women in their agony! All these phan- 
toms came to me as I paced the quarter-deck and 
asked, almost as a man in despair, what kept my 
friends or how long the mists would prevail.? I could 
imagine a day when this mighty idea had first oc- 
curred to the Jew’s cunning intellect, and he had 
acclaimed the possibilities of it. What police, and 
of what nations, would seek their criminals upon the 
high seas, or search there for the jewels which the 
chief rogues of Europe brought to a sanctuary so 
297 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


sure! What mind would have read this riddle/ aright 
unless accident had suggested its answer? I claimed 
nothing for myself ; a thousand times an irony would 
it have been to do so. 

Let me escape these decks, and how much farther 
was I upon the road to finality ? I could tell a plain 
tale to the Government, certainly, and could open 
the doors of this temple of assassins to the world — 
but who would crush so vast a conspiracy? What 
unity of national action, what initiative would war 
upon the greater truths of it, hunting the tigers 
from their dens or ridding the cities of their allies? 
All that I had done, all my planning, all my think- 
ing had left the Jew a free man and sent me a 
prisoner on the deck of his ship. And God alone 
could give me freedom, that God in whose immediate 
providence I have never ceased to believe! 

This was the outcome of my philosophy as I stood 
by the gangway and watched the shifting mists, here 
opening a little silvered pathway — as to an arbor 
of delights ; there beating down again in dank clouds 
of vapor, and shutting all the hither scene from my 
view. The men had left me alone for the time being, 
but their absence seemed a greater peril. I could 
hear a loud argument going on by the fo’castle and 
voices raised in persuasion or in anger. The monster 
ship herself drifted helplessly, as a great stricken 
beast lurching in agony and seeking only a place 
298 


THE BRIDGE 


to end its woes. Every faculty that I possess told 
me that I was in great danger. These rogues would 
come forward presently and put some proposition to 
me. So I argued, nor did the night give me the lie. 
Shuffling and hesitating they came, some twenty or 
more of them, before another hour had passed, all 
together in a deputation, and as ready, I would 
swear, to cut me down where I stood, as to drink the 
rum which an obliging purser had served out to 
them. 

The American, I perceived, was to be their chief 
speaker, and with him was the man called Bill Evans. 
Advancing by the promenade deck in a body, they 
seemed to find some little difficulty when it came to 
expressing themselves in plain English; and had the 
situation been less dangerous, it would have been 
amusing enough. 

“ Well, my men,” I cried, being careful to have 
the first word at them ; “ what is it, now ? Speak 
up, I shall not eat you.” 

“ Beg pardon, sir, we wish you to know that Will 
Rayner has been made captain of this ship, and that 
he wishes you to go below.” 

The man named Evans spoke, and I must say his 
manner was diverting enough. 

“ That is very considerate of Mr. William Ray- 
ner,” said I with a laugh. “ Will he not step for- 
ward — am I not to have the pleasure of seeing him.'^ ” 
20 299 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


“ He’s back there by the capstan, sir. We’re a 
depytashun, if you please. Will won’t have nobody 
aft the galley, and that’s his plain words. You’re to 
go below and to wait until you’re sent for.” 

I looked the speaker full in the face and laughed 
at him contemptuously. 

“ My men,” I said calmly, addressing them all to- 
gether, “ do you wish to be afloat to-morrow morn- 
ing, or is this ship and all aboard her to be at the 
bottom of the Atlantic.^ ” 

They were evidently perplexed. The gentleman 
by name of Bill Evans continued to speak. 

“ Me and my mates, beggin’ your pardon sir — 
we don’t fall in with that. You’re fair marooned, 
and that’s the end of it. Will says as he means 
well by you, but while you’re on this ship, you’ll 
obey him and nobody else. Humbly representin’ it, 

sir, we’ll have to see that you do as Will says ” 

I took a pistol from my pocket and deliberately 
cocked it. This was touch and go for my very life. 
Had I shot one of those men, I knew that it would 
all be over in an instant, and that they would either 
bow the knee to me or murder me on the spot. 

“ Now, see here,” said I. “ My yacht’s lying out 
yonder not a biscuit toss from this deck. If you 
give me as much as another word of impudence. I’ll 
send you and every ruffian aboard here to hell as 
sure as this is a revolver, and there are cartridges 
300 


THE BRIDGE 


in it. Go and tell Mr. Will Rayner what I say, for, 
by the Lord above me, I will go myself and fetch 
him, if you do not.” 

I have said that the moment was critical beyond 
any through which I have lived, and a truer word 
could not be spoken. There we stood, the angry 
seamen upon one side, myself upon the other, each 
party knowing that the issue was for good and all, 
and yet neither willing to bring the instant of it 
upon us. As for these wretched fellows, I do not 
believe that they would have lifted a hand against 
me had it not been for the American who incited 
them. He was the ringleader despite the newly 
made captain, and his mock authority. And he was 
the dangerous man with whom I had to deal. 

“ I guess your yacht may be where you say she 
is,” he remarked with a drawl ; “ but she’s got to 
hustle if she wants to come up with us this summer 
weather. Don’t you be too free with your pistol, 
doctor, or some of us will have to take it from you. 
You’re a clove-hitch, and had better keep a civil 
tongue in your head or maybe we’ll cut it out and 
see what it’s made of. Now just you come along o’ 
me and don’t make no trouble about it. Will Rayner 
ain’t a goin’ to eat you, and you ain’t a goin’ to eat 
him, so step up brisk, doctor, and let’s see you 
march.” 

This impudent harangue was hailed by a salvo of 

301 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


applause. The fellow himself took two steps toward 
me and laid a hand upon my shoulder. He had 
scarce touched me with his fingers when I struck 
him full in the face, and he rolled headlong into 
the scuppers. The same instant saw me leaping 
for my very life up the ladder to the bridge 
deck and clutching there at the rope which opened 
the steamer’s siren. Good God! What an instant 
of suspense I Were the fires below damped down, or 
was there steam in the boiler.? One tremendous pull 
upon the rope had no answer for me at all. Again, 
and again I jerked the cord back as though very 
desperation would sound the alarm which should sum- 
mon my friends and save me from this rabble. And 
the men below watched me aghast, their curiosity 
overpowering them, their mouths agape, so that 
when the siren’s blast went echoing over the still 
sea at last, you could have heard a footfall on our 
decks, or caught the meaning of a whispered mes- 
sage. 

The men were dumfounded, I say, and without 
idea. This I have ever observed to be a habit among 
seamen when the news of any great disaster comes 
upon them or they are taken unawares in an instant 
of emergency. No clown could look more childish 
then, or any Master Boldface laugh as foolishly. 
There they were in a group below me, some with 
their hands thrust deep into their pockets, some 
S02 


THE BRIDGE 


smoking idly; some looking into the faces of their 
neighbors as though a glance would answer the 
riddle of the night. And while they stood, the siren 
roared a blast of defiance, again and again, as the 
voice of a Minotaur of the deep, warning and ter- 
rifying, and not to be resisted. Had I doubted the 
vigilance of my good comrades upon the yacht, I 
could have doubted it no longer. White Wings an- 
swered my signal almost instantly in a higher note 
of defiance, in a shrill assent to that wild roll-call, 
the orator mechanical of honest friendship. And as 
she answered, her siren seemed to put a reproach 
upon me, saying, “ The yacht is here — all is well — 
why have you doubted us ? ” 

A deep silence fell upon the Diamond Ship when 
this signal came reverberating over the waters. 
None of the amazed seamen spoke a word or made 
a movement for many minutes. I had already put 
my pistol into my pocket and taken a cigarette from 
my case. If I wished the men to believe that the 
hour of crisis had passed, I was under no delusion at 
all myself. For remember that I had gone up to 
the bridge and stood there, during this supreme in- 
stant of danger; and that, if I would regain the 
deck of the yacht, I must descend the ladder down 
through these serried ranks of men ; and must pass 
as one who was going from them to the house of 
avenger, to his comrades who would judge the 
303 


an 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


story and help him to decide upon the punishment. 
The rogues’ very salvation depended upon my cap- 
tivity; I was their hostage, and by me would re- 
prieve come, if reprieve were to be hoped for at all. 
This I perceived long before it had dawned upon 
the witless rabble; but it occurred even to them at 
last, and crowding about the ladder’s foot they told 
me bluntly that they were aware of it. 

“ Guess it’s your turn,” said the American, ven- 
turing a step upward but no more. His manner 
had become sheepish, I observed, and he spoke with 
less truculence. 

“ My turn, as you say, sir,” I rejoined with what 
composure I could. “ I am now going aboard my 
yacht, and there I will decide what is to be done 
with you. That will depend upon your behavior, 
I advise you to remember as much.” 

I lit my cigarette and waited for him to go on. 
White Wings was evidently quite near to us now — 
I could hear the throb of her turbines; her siren 
hooted repeatedly. The night was mine but for an 
accident. And yet. Heaven knows, it appeared to 
me then that an accident must befall me unless a 
miracle intervened. 

“ That’s your yacht right enough,” the Yankee 
went on immediately. “ And so far as it’s her, we’re 
in a clove-hitch ourselves. The question is, who’s 
to put you aboard her, and what shall we be about 
304 


THE BRIDGE 


when he’s doing of it? Now, see here, as between 
man and man — ^you give us your solemn affidavit 
not to do anything against the ship’s crew, and 
you’re free to come and go as you choose. That’s 
my first condition — the second is as you sign the 
paper Will Rayner has drawed up and abide by 
its terms. Do as much as that and your friends 
shan’t be more willing to help you. But if you don’t 
do it — why, then, look out for yourself, for, by 
the Lord above me, you ain’t got ten minutes to 
live.” 

He came another step up the ladder, cheered, as 
it seemed, by his own eloquence. As for the men, 
they opened their lips for the first time since my 
yacht had answered me, and their hoarse roar of 
defiance, uttered in that unpleasant timbre to which 
the sea attunes the human voice, backed the threat 
and made it their own. Had it been left to me 
under circumstances less dangerous, I might have 
given them my word to let me go free, and signed 
the paper their leader spoke about; but just in the 
same measure that they threatened me, so did my 
anger against them rise — and stepping briskly to the 
topmost rung of the ladder, I answered them in a 
sentence that even their dull intellects could under- 
stand. 

“Not a word or a line, by God! That is my 
answer, sir. You may take it or leave it; but if you 
305 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


leave it, some of you shall as certainly hang for 
this night’s work as this is a pistol I hold in my 
hand. Now stand back, for I am coming down 
amongst you. Yonder, you see, is the boat I am 
expecting.” 

Lifting my hand, I pointed with dramatic intent 
to the port quarter of the ship. The sea was void 
upon the quarter — what need to tell it. But my 
eyes had already detected the black outline of a 
ship’s boat upon the starboard bow, and my very 
life depended upon the ruse which should divert the 
men’s attention from it. Never shall I doubt the 
ruffians would have made an end of it there and then, 
and have murdered me as they had murdered the 
criminals upon the ship, if the argument had been 
carried but another sentence. I had seen knives un- 
sheathed at my words, had heard the promptings 
of rogue to rogue, that low muttering of the human 
beast who has scented prey, and whose nostrils are 
distended by the lust of it. Let the talk run on, 
and they would be up the ladder and upon me, cost 
what it might — up and on me, and their knives at 
my throat. This I understood, when I pointed to 
the port quarter and sent them gaping there in a 
body — as children who are not content to hear, but 
with their own eyes would see. 

My freedom, nay, my life depended upon the ruse. 
Such a fact was clear above all others. It had been 
306 


THE BRIDGE 

no lie when I said that my friends were coming 
to me. Athwart the great ship, not fifty yards from 
the starboard bow, lay the long boat which had been 
sent out to me. I took one last look at the huddled 
forms below me, debated the possibilities in one of 
those swift mental surveys to which long habit has 
trained me, and staking all upon the venture, risk- 
ing every peril both of the men and the sea, I leaped 
boldly from the bridge and left the issue to the God 
of my destinies. 

So the tragic hour began for me, and such were 
its circumstances ! The rushing waters booming as a 
dirge in my ears, my clothes dragging me down as 
a burden insupportable; darkness and the dread sea 
all about me; a black sky meeting my vision as I 
rose gasping to the surface — ^no knowledge now of 
where the boat lay or in what direction to strike 
out; no certainty that my friends had seen me or 
were alive to my situation — ^nothing but silence and 
the long rollers carrying me, and far away a dis- 
tant shouting, an echo of pistol shots, a rejoinder 
of strong voices and then a silence, so deep, so pro- 
found that the very wavelets were as cataracts 
beating at my brain. This, surely, was the moment 
when a man might have told himself that he was 
cast out utterly from man and the world, a true 
derelict of the vast ocean, a voice crying in a 
monstrous silence, a holocaust to wind and wave 

307 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


and the gaping sea. The deepest dungeon ashore 
could not have inflicted a wound of desolation so 
terrible. 

I was there within a cable’s length of those who 
would have given their very lives for me, and yet 
as far away from them as though I had stood at 
the foot of Mount Terror and cried to the skies for 
my salvation. Not a sound, not a whisper of life 
did the wind bear to me. A strong swimmer, I 
lay deep in the water, the spindrift cold upon my 
face, the ripples of the crests soaking my hair, the 
blue black sky for my zenith. And how far had 
those minutes carried me from humanity and all 
human interests ! 

Calmly, as a man in a reverie of the mind could, I 
recounted this venture from the beginning, and won- 
dered why I had set out upon it at all. What was 
it to me that these rogues pitted their wits against 
their brother rogues ashore.^ Who had made me 
the judge of crime and its servants or permitted 
me to say that one man was a thief and another 
man honest ? The great ocean laughed at such 
laws and their makers. Might and majesty and the 
throne of winds — were not they a kingdom stu- 
pendous in its grandeur and unsurpassable in its 
magnitude No sense of danger, indeed, went with 
me to the waters. I heard their dulcet voice and 
answered them — I saw the figures I had known and 
308 


THE BRIDGE 


loved, and no sense of regret attended the vision. 
An unquenchable fire of confidence burned in my 
brain. I believed that I should see little Joan again, 
though the waters engulfed me utterly. 

Let me claim no merit for a mental attitude so 
unusual. I have known many men who have been 
taken from the water almost upon the point of 
death, and in no case does fear seem to have been 
a part of their experience. Certainly, in one or two 
instances, they have spoken of great pain in the 
lungs, but their chief recollection has been of a 
great content and of a profound sense of rest as 
though the peace and loneliness of the deep had 
communicated itself to their souls and robbed them 
in an instant of that burden of life of which all, 
with whatever courage they may bear it, are sen- 
sible. Speaking again for myself, I do not think 
it is a misrepresentation to say that I had no over- 
mastering desire to be saved from the peril which 
had overtaken me. Not a morbid man or one who 
is insensible to the privileges and duties of our com- 
mon destiny, I will confess that a certain ironical 
view of human things came to me as the good tide 
carried me, and the surf bathed my face. All the 
littleness of the everyday existence, its petty bick- 
erings, its trumpery ambitions were so much sport 
for the rolling waves about me, so much silvery 
laughter for the surging swell and the cradle of the 

309 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


billows. And if this mood changed at all — as I 
know that ultimately it did change — the new spirit 
breathed human love as its chief desire, the simplest 
of the human affections, the depth, the truth and 
the nobility of them. 

I saw then that there is nothing permanent in 
life but love, nothing to be so surely desired, no 
human quality so precious as that habit of loving. 
And passing from the more general admission, my 
own story must present itself to me again, and bid 
me ask why I had left Joan Fordibras at all when 
I found her at Dieppe; why I had accepted the 
challenge there thrown down to me when I might 
have taken her in my arms and written the golden 
page in our lives once and forever.? This reflection 
could move me instantly to a great pathos of re- 
gret, and inspire in me a mad stirring after some 
shore of my safety when I could say, “ I have not 
done well; the blame is mine.” And from this time 
I thought but of J oan alone ; saw her face looking 
down to me from the skies above, and heard but the 
plaintive music of her voice. No words may tell the 
sudden distress of this — there is no measure of 
human speech which shall convey to another the 
depth of that human anguish of loss a man may 
suffer on the threshold of death. It is the su- 
premest trial of all, a very agony of the soul defy- 
ing all expression. 


310 


THE BRIDGE 

I have been at some pains to set down these im- 
pressions closely, for they stood to me for the bitter 
reckoning I must pay for the quest of Valentine 
Imroth and the ship he had commanded. Cast out 
there upon the black ocean, I had been a fool to 
believe that I merited any particular mercy of the 
Almighty which would repair my mistakes or pass 
by my imprudence. That I had escaped into the 
sea at all, now seemed the greater wonder. I could 
depict the instant of fierce exclamation which had 
followed upon my plunge, the roar of voices, the 
loud report of vain pistols. These I had heard 
with my own ears, and it should have come to me 
that my own fellows had heard them also. Little 
good reasoning, however, may be looked for from 
a man cast down from a high deck into the Atlantic 
Ocean, and there left to battle with the surges in 
the shadows of the night. How long it was be- 
fore the end came, I shall never know. I recollect 
that I had the sense not to swim but merely to 
keep afloat as near as might be to the scene of my 
rashness. The intervening moments, as I say, 
brought me from a state of content to one of de- 
spair, and from that again almost to a state of 
insensibility — and I know only that a great rough 
hand took me from the sea at last, that white faces 
bent over me, and that, kindliest of them all, was 
the face of Joan Fordibras — my little Joan of the 
311 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


Valley House — who stooped and kissed my lips, and 
with a young girl’s tears expressed the welcome by 
her heart unspoken. 

And so love was the Avenger after all — love set 
above the kingdom of Death as love shall ever be. 


SU 


CHAPTER XXX 

HOMEWARD BOUND 

Samuel Weller, I believe, expressed his opinion 
upon a famous occasion that there was no medicine 
in all the world half so efficacious or so infallible 
as rum punch — to which axiom he added the rider 
that if any man had ever failed to derive benefits 
from this nectar, it was because he had not taken 
enough of it. Such a doctrine, for my part, I find 
incontrovertible. There is no cure for an over- 
dose of cold water so swift and certain as the 
remedy the excellent Samuel has prescribed. There 
is assuredly none so rarely declined or so readily 
sampled by the patient. 

I am an exceedingly strong man — and despite the 
assertions of my dear sister Harriet, my constitu- 
tion is of iron. No common exercise tires me; I 
can walk all day and be the better for my walk 
at bed-time. I have swum five miles in the sea on 
two occasions, and defied all the faculty, after a 
wetting, more times than I care to remember. If 
it be foolish to boast overmuch of such a catalogue 
313 


of physical merits, I set them down here that I 
may speak of the hours following upon my rescue 
with that brevity they deserve, and spare the reader 
any pedantic account of them. 

It had been Okyada’s hand which dragged me 
from the sea, and Larry himself had steered the boat 
which discovered me. Despite the fog, that lynx- 
eyed captain of mine had dogged every movement 
of the Diamond Ship, and stood so close to her, 
throughout the adventure, that he could sometimes 
have tossed a biscuit to her decks. When the 
rabble chased me to the bridge, his keen ear had 
detected the commotion. He heard me leap from 
the ship, and guessed instantly the nature of the 
situation which drove me to this extremity. His 
express commands had kept the long boat in the 
sea from the beginning, and in the sea she swam 
when I had most need of her. They told me after- 
wards that a crew had manned her and was away 
before you could have counted twenty. It must 
have been so, as the outcome shows. 

Now, these good fellows, dragging their prize by 
the head and the heels as seamen will in bursts of 
nautical ecstasy, bundled me into the boat and the 
blankets almost by one and the same movement; 
and rowing swiftly to the yacht, they fought their 
way through the little knot of anxious men, and 
had me rubbed down like a dog and safely in my 
3U 


own bed almost before I realized that they were 
my friends at all, or that their vigilance had saved 
me from the sea. For my own part, I suffered 
them as one suffers a man who insists upon an ex- 
hibition of his good will and is not to be repulsed. 
I had no pain, be it said, no sense of weakness, 
no symptom either of exhaustion or of extreme 
cold. Whatever emotion agitated me was chiefly 
the emotion of friendship, and of the sure knowl- 
edge that Joan Fordibras was on the ship, that 
she moved and breathed near by me, and, with God’s 
help, would remain my prisoner to the end of my 
days. For, be assured that, despite old Timothy, 
who roared for the hot water and the lemons in a 
voice that could have been heard in the truck, little 
Joan had taken as proud command of that cabin 
five minutes after I entered it, as any commander 
of a ship who hoists his pennant at Plymouth. 
Nor had anyone the right to drive her thence or 
to take that place she occupied so gracefully. 

How gentle is a woman’s hand in the hour of 
our misfortunes; how unmatched her sympathy and 
unwearying her patience ! These old truths we 
know as copybook maxims, and yet there are few 
who understand them truly until illness is their 
master and captivity their lot. I was not ill — 
bed was no proper place for me — and yet I lay 
there watching Joan, afraid almost to speak, wist- 
21 315 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


ful of her care, gratitude as surely in my heart as 
though this had been a house of sickness, and she 
had been its ministering angel. How silently, how 
deftly, she moved ! There was grace in every move- 
ment, I thought, grace and sweetness and light. And 
she was my Joan of Dieppe again. The shadow 
of the Valley House no longer dwelt upon her 
childish face. 

I suppose it would have been early in the new 
day when Joan took charge of me, and old Timothy 
brewed the punch and Larry came and went from 
the cabin to the bridge as a man full of anxieties, 
and yet in some sense content that it should be so. 
These foolish nurses of mine had so far told me 
nothing, nor did they hear me talking with equanim- 
ity. An immersion in the sea is often regarded 
by a sailor, of all men, as a dreadful tragedy. Few 
of this trade can swim, nor does he ever regard 
the water as other than an enemy. So now Larry 
would have kept me to my bed, smothered in blan- 
kets, and dosed like an old salt with Timothy’s 
rum. It is little wonder that I became almost angry 
at their solicitude, and was ready to behave like a 
spoiled child which does not know its own good 
fortune. 

“Why do you do all this, Joan?” I asked her, 
when half an hour of it had passed. “ Am I a 
child to be petted and spoiled because its pinafore 
316 


HOMEWARD BOUND 


is wet? Tell Captain Larry that I am coming up 
to the bridge. You cannot suppose that I shall be 
content to lie here now. Tell him I am coming 
up at once. It is nonsense to make such a fuss.” 

Joan shook her head as though, thus early, she 
had come to despair of me. 

“ Only a man would talk like that,” she ex- 
claimed, and then — ‘‘ Only a man would be so un- 
grateful.” 

‘‘ I demur to the charge. You set a great crowd 
of bullies on me to hold me down by violence, and 
then talk of ingratitude! Do you not see, my dear 
girl, that I must know what is going on? How 
can I lie here when there is so much uncertainty 
— when so many things may happen ? Please do 
as I tell you, and let Captain Larry know at 
once.” 

She came and stood by my bedside, and touch- 
ing my fingers for, an instant with her own — a 
gesture which thrilled me as though some strange 
current of a new life burned in my veins — she said 
very quietly : 

“ There is nothing happening. Dr. Ean. If you 
went up to the bridge, you would see nothing but 
the fog. That is what Mr. McShanus is looking 
at now — at that and the punch bowl. We cannot 
see the others — we shall never see them again, I 
hope.” 


317 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


It was calmly said, and yet what a tale of woe 
it voiced: days of her own agony among the ruf- 
fians, intolerable hours of suffering and distress! 
I thought her then one of the bravest of women — 
I think so to this hour. 

‘‘ Joan,” I said, “ how did you come here.? Where 
did Okyada find you.? I have thought much 
about it, and I believe that I know. But you 
must tell me yourself. You hid in one of the boats, 
did you not — one of the three boats the men low- 
ered when they wished me to go on board their 
ship. I thought it must be so. There was no other 
way.” 

She had seated herself by this time in a girlish 
attitude at the foot of my bunk, her feet swing- 
ing together as though to express a sense of her 
indifference; her hands clasped, her eyes avoiding 
mine as though she feared I would read the whole 
truth therein. 

“ You were a wizard always. Dr. Ean. My father, 
that is General Fordibras, said so — Mr. McShanus 
thinks it, and so does Captain Larry. Yes, it was 
in the last of the boats that I hid myself. I saw 
them lower it, and then, when they all got into the 
first two, I climbed down from the gangway, and hid 
myself under the tarpaulin. Have you ever been 
really afraid. Dr. Ean — afraid for an instant of 
something which seems to be worse than your 
318 


HOMEWARD BOUND 


thoughts can imagine? Well, I have been afraid 
like that ever since Mr. Imroth took me on the ship — 
afraid in a way I cannot tell you — yes, so afraid that 
I would lie for hours, and shut all sights and sounds 
from my ears, and pray that the day would find me 
dead. I tell you now that you may not speak to 
me of it again — I could not bear it, God knows I 
could not.” 

For an instant, and an instant only, her courage 
failed her, and burying her face in her hands she 
wept like a child. Herein I think she gave expres- 
sion to that pent-up anguish she had so long sup- 
ported silently and alone. I did not seek to com- 
fort her, did not answer a word to her piteous 
entreaty. The circumstances of her rescue must, 
in the end, be their own answer to her fears, I 
thought. 

“We will not speak of it, Joan,” I said gently. 
“ It was a clever thought to hide yourself in the 
boat, and I wonder it occurred to you. Of course 
I should have been disappointed if I had been wrong. 
Directly they told me that you were not on the 
ship, I guessed that you had jumped down into one 
of the neglected boats, and that Okyada would find 
you there. That is a fellow who reads my mind 
more clearly than I can read it myself. He is the 
true wizard. We must keep Okyada always with 
us when we go back to the old home in England, 
319 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


Joan. I would not lose him for all the riches 
on your Diamond Ship and more. Yes, indeed, we 
must never part with Okyada.” 

This was said with some meaning, and Joan 
Fordibras would have been unworthy of the clever- 
ness with which I credited her, had the intent of 
it failed. She understood me instantly — I knew 
that it would be so. 

“ I must go to Paris,” she rejoined with a dig- 
nity inseparable from such an answer. “ General 
Fordibras will be waiting for me there. I must go 
to him. Dr. Ean. It was never his intention to send 
me on the ship — no, I will do him the justice to 
say that. They tricked me into going — Mr. Imroth 
and those with him. My father would have taken 
me back to America. He promised me that the day 
I went to Valley House. I believe that he was in 
earnest — he has never told me a lie.” 

“ A point in his favor and one of the best. Then 
it was the Jew who took you away that night my 
friends saved me. I should have thought of that. 
I should have guessed as much.” 

Insensibly, you will see, I had been leading her to 
tell me the whole story of her life since we had been 
separated at Valley House. Her determination to 
j go to Paris I found worthy of her attitude since the 
beginning; her loyalty to this arch-villain, Fordi- 
bras, remained amazing in its consistency. After all, 
320 


HOMEWARD BOUND 


I remembered, this man had shown her some kind- 
ness, and, in a sense, had acted a father’s part toward 
her. I did not believe that he had intended delib- 
erately to brand her with the crimes his agents had 
committed. That had been the Jew’s work — the 
work of a man who was the very keystone of this 
stupendous conspiracy. I could not blame Joan be- 
cause she had the wit to see it. 

“ You will remember that it was after dinner. 
Dr. Ean, and I had gone up to my room,” she 
said, replying to my question. “ I had been there 
perhaps half an hour when the old servant, who 
used to wait on me, came up and said that my father 
was waiting for me in the gardens. I ran down at 
once, and followed her to the mountain gate, which 
the General alone made use of. There I met the 
negro, who said that I must accompany him to the 
observatory which is on the cliffs, as you know. 
I did not suspect anything; why should I? My 
father was often at the observatory with Mr. Im- 
roth, and I imagined that they had some good news 
for me. That was a child’s thought, but I am not 
ashamed of it. No sooner had we passed the tun- 
nel than two of the sailors ran up from the cliff 
road and told us that the General had gone on 
board the yacht, and that I must follow him. It 
was a trick, of course. The yacht was waiting for 
me, but the General was not on board her. I was 
SU 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


helpless in their hands, and we sailed that night 
to join the ElUda ” 

“ The Ellida ! So that is the name of their ship. 
The Hebrew is a bit of a sage, it appears. Was 
not the Ellida the ship of Frith j of in the fable, 
and did not it understand every word he spoke A 
clever hit. They would name him for a Norwegian 
and neglect to be suspicious. I see the point of 
it, and admit his sagacity. He took you with him, 
not meaning any harm to you, but principally to 
frighten me. Well, Joan, I should not have been 
frightened, but it would be untrue to tell you that 
I have so much sense. There are hours when most 
men lose their courage. I lost mine entirely upon 
the night when they signalled a message concern- 
ing you. If I had been somebody else, I should 
have seen at once that it was mere sound and fury, 
signifying nothing. You, I suppose, were com- 
fortably in your cabin sleeping meanwhile. That 
is generally the story — one of two in a frenzy of 
anxiety, and the other quietly sleeping. Let us 
say no more about it. The circumstances will never 
recur, I trust, if we live for a thousand years — 
an unnecessary piece of emphasis, young as my 
Joan is.” 

I had brought a smile to her face now, and she 
began to tell me many things about the Jew’s ship 
which otherwise, I am convinced, would never have 
322 


HOMEWARD BOUND 


been told at all. There were thirty-two so-called 
passengers on board, she said, eleven of them women 
— and a crew, as she heard, of fifty hands. The 
smallness of this did not surprise me. Here was 
a ship which rarely went into port, a great hulk 
floating in the waste of the Atlantic — what need 
had she of men.? The fellows idled about the deck 
all day, as Joan confessed, and at night there were 
scenes passing all words to describe. 

“We lived as you Hve in the great hotels in 
London. Ships came to us frequently from Eng- 
land and America, and supplied us with all that 
was necessary. Mr. Imroth rarely saw anyone, but 
the others played cards all day, and when they did 
not play cards they quarreled. Then at night all 
the cabins would be lighted up, and there would be 
dancing and singing and dreadful scenes until day- 
break. While Mr. Imroth was on the ship, I saw 
very little of it at all. He made me keep my cabin, 
and he was right to do so. When he left us, it was 
very different. I remember that a young Russian 
fell in love with me the first day I went on deck 
— there were others of whom I cannot speak, and 
moments I shall never forget. Mr. Ross was very 
kind, but he had not Mr. Imroth’s influence with 
the men. When he came on board, Mr. Imroth 
sailed for the Brazils, and the mutiny began. Some 
of the men wished to go ashore; there were others 
32S 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


who would have waited for their companions who 
were coming out from Europe on a relief ship. 
Then one night the alarm was given that your yacht 
had arrived and was watching us. Mr. Imroth had 
told the men all about you, and when you were 
sighted, I believe they thought that there were other 
ships with you, and that their end had come. From 
that night it was one long scene of terror and 
bloodshed. I lived — I cannot tell you of it. Dr. 
Ean; you would never believe what I have seen and 
heard.” 

I told her that I could well understand what 
had happened. When rogues fall out and there are 
women among them, then, assuredly, do men lose 
the image of their humanity, and take upon them 
that of devils. The scenes upon the ship must have 
defied all measured description. I could imagine the 
shrieks of the women, the oaths and frenzy of the 
beaten criminals, the terror of the seamen, the long 
nights of drunkenness and debauch, the fury of the 
combat — above all the rage and madness against the 
man who had contrived all this. What would my 
life have been worth amongst these men if I had 
gone aboard them before the battle had been lost 
or won, or the hour of their extremity had not 
arrived.^ That little Joan herself had escaped the 
more awful penalty, remained a wonder of the night. 
I could but be sensible of a gratitude to the provi- 
324 


HOMEWARD BOUND 


dence of almighty God which had saved her — from 
what a fate! 

“I must teach you to forget it, Joan,” I said; 
“ the homelands of England will help you to blot 
out these memories. It is too early yet to say 
exactly what course we must take, and what our 
immediate subsequent plans will be. But we are 
homeward bound now, and never again will there 
be a home for me where little Joan is not. That 
is what I have to say to you to-night. There will 
be sunshine to-morrow, Joan, and we will see the 
new day together. The world could give me no 
greater happiness.” 

She did not answer me. I knew that she was 
thinking of the sorrow of her own life, and telling 
herself that she could never be my wife until the 
mystery of her birth and infancy was mine to 
judge. And this was the malice of it — that the 
men who could solve that mystery were criminals 
both, fleeing from justice, and as likely to seek a 
meeting with me as to vaunt before the world the 
story of their crimes. 


S25 


CHAPTER XXXI 


THE END OF THE DIAMOND SHIP 

I SUPPOSE that I slept a few hours at the dead of 
night ; but certainly I was awake again shortly after 
the sun had risen, and up on the bridge with Larry, 
as curious a man as any in the Southern hemisphere 
that morning. Remember in what a situation I had 
left the Diamond Ship, the problems that remained 
unsolved upon her decks, the distress of her crew, 
the trials and judgments that awaited them ashore, 
the sure death prepared for them upon the high 
seas. All this the fog had veiled from our reckon- 
ing last night, but the day dawned clear and sunny, 
the curtain had been lifted, the whole picture stood 
there asking our pity, and in some measure our 
gratitude. Had we any longer a duty toward the 
honest men yonder — if honest men there could by 
any possibility be; or did other claims call us im- 
periously back to England and our homes, to tell 
the story where all the world might hear it? These 
were the questions that Larry and I discussed to- 
gether, as we stood on the bridge that sunny morn- 
326 


END OF THE DIAMOND SHIP 


ing and focused our glasses upon the distant ship. 
Should we abandon her or return Frankly, I knew 
not where our duty lay. The problem presented 
possibilities so awful that I shrank from them. 

“ There are women aboard there, Larry,” I would 
say. 

And he would answer as often : 

“ There are men aboard here, sir, with wives and 
little children waiting for them at home.” 

“We could stand by them, Larry,” I put it to 
him. “ If they come to reason, we should do all 
that is humanly possible for their wounded, and those 
who are deserving our pity.” 

“ You cannot stand by them, sir — you have not 
a pound of coal to waste. Mr. Benson says he will 
have all his work cut out to get us to the Azores 
as it is. We shall look pretty if we imitate them 
and drift about here till Doomsday. And we haven’t 
any music on board, sir. We must go dancing to 
our own complaints. Have you thought of that, 
doctor.? ” 

“ God knows,” said I mournfully. “ There they 
are, sickness and fever and death on board — women 
at the mercy of ruffians, the ship drifting helplessly, 
the dock waiting for them in any honest port, httle 
chance of making any port at all. What is a sea- 
man to do — where does his simple duty lie.? Answer 
those questions, and I will begin to agree with you. 
S27 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


We are men and must play a man’s part. Tell 
me, I repeat, where our duty lies and we will do it.” 

I will do Larry the justice to say that when he 
had made up his mind upon a given course, he 
rarely turned from it. His own crew were justly 
dearer to him than any ship-load of criminals drift- 
ing in an unmanageable hulk upon the Atlantic 
Ocean. And the logic of his case was, I suppose, 
unanswerable. 

“ Doctor,” he said, “ if your brother lay dying, 
would you call first upon him or the son of your 
neighbor who had hurt himself running away from 
the police.? You ask me where our duty lies, and 
I’ll tell you in a word. It lies to Miss Joan first 
of all — to see that the shadow of this trouble never 
falls upon her childish face again. And after that, 
it is a duty to the brave men who have served you 
so well, to them and their homes and those that 
are dear to them. Yonder ship is as well off as 
we are, and in many ways better. She is now in the 
track of mail steamers bound to the Argentine, and 
will quickly fall in with help. If you board her 
again, they will cut your throat for a certainty, 
and try to board us when that is done. Leave 
them to the justice of almighty God. Their des- 
tiny is in other hands. That is wisdom and duty 
together.” 

I knew that he was right, and yet I will confess 

328 


END OF THE DIAMOND SHIP 


that I surrendered to his judgment with reluc- 
tance. There is an unwritten law of the sea that 
no sailor in distress shall be deserted, however just 
or merited his fate may be. We could take the 
honest fellows from the ship, I would persist, and 
do all humanly possible for those who were sick. It 
would be a reproach to me afterwards, I feared, a 
memory of a day neither altogether glorious nor 
altogether merciful. As to the great hulk herself, 
my glass showed her decks clearly, but did not dis- 
cover any signs of life upon them. Just as I had 
left her drifting at the mercy of wind and cur- 
rent, so now did she lie sagging in the troughs of 
the rollers, a piteous spectacle of impotency and 
despair. The very sails upon her masts were torn 
and ragged as though long neglected by a seaman’s 
hands. No smoke issued from her funnel; the boats 
had been taken up ; I could espy no commander 
upon her bridge nor discern that brisk grouping 
of the hands upon the fo’castle which bespeaks a 
voyage. She might have been a phantom ship, a 
sea vision conjured up by those whom isolation and 
suffering have schooled to that abnormal habit of 
mind which receives such impressions and makes 
realities of them. 

“ At least, Larry,” said I, “ we will take another 
look at her if you please. Miss Joan is sleeping, I 
imagine. She will know nothing of this, and the 
329 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


men are not to suppose that I am unmindful of 
what I owe to them. Let us learn, if we can, 
what is happening over yonder — then we shall turn 
homeward with lighter hearts. Even our miserly 
Benson will not tell me that we have not coal enough 
for such a diversion.” 

He had no reasonable objection to offer to this — 
and, to be plain, our very course must carry us in 
some such direction. We had stood by the ship 
all night, and she lay now upon our port bow, dis- 
tant, perhaps, two miles from us on a spirited sea 
which gamboled before a fresh westerly wind that 
would be half a gale presently. As we drew nearer, 
the pictures, which a good telescope had revealed 
to me, were not belied. I could now make out a 
few hands at the fo’castle hatch; there was a soli- 
tary figure by the taffrail, and two or three more 
about the main deck. Nowhere, however, did any 
evidences of activity appear. Had I not seen the 
afflicted with my own eyes, dressed their wounds and 
heard their woeful complaints, it would have been 
impossible to credit the burden of human anguish 
which that vast derelict must carry. That such 
a ship could now do us any mischief seemed be- 
yond all belief incredible. None the less, the fact 
must be recorded that we were still some half a 
mile from her when she fired a gun at us, and a 
shell fell idly into the sea not a hundred yards 
330 


END OF THE DIAMOND SHIP 


from our foremast. Nor was this all, for a sec- 
ond report immediately rang out from her decks, 
and a great flame of fire leapt up above them, 
though no shell followed after, nor could the quick- 
est eye detect the path of any shot. 

“ Larry,” I said, “ that is what I have been ex- 
pecting all along. The breech of one of their guns 
is blown out. I wonder how many lives it has cost ? ” 
“ But you are not going on board to see, sir.?^ ” 

“ Indeed, no. Their shot has answered all my 
questions. It is homeward bound now, Larry — full 
speed ahead as soon as you will — and God help any 
innocent man if there be such over yonder.” 

His rejoinder was the bell ringing out loudly 
in our engine-room below. To the quartermaster 
he cried in a captain’s sharp voice, “ One point 
starboard,” and was answered, “ One point star- 
board it is.” I perceived that we had altered our 
course almost imperceptibly, and were now steering 
almost direct to the northeast, which must bring 
us to the islands of the Azores, and the coal we 
needed so sorely. If there were any regrets, one 
man alone suffered them and remained silent. It 
had been so much my own emprise from the begin- 
ning; I had hoped so much, dared so much, feared 
so much because of it, that this silent flight from the 
scene, this abandonment of the quest, this abject 
submission to our necessity, could be accounted no 
22 SSI 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


less than a personal humiliation which must remain 
with me whatever the subsequent achievement. 

I had set out to drag the Jew to justice. A 
voice, ironical, reminded me that Valentine Imroth 
was free and ashore, that he mocked my knowledge, 
and might yet outwit a sullen police. The great 
house of crime he had erected must be pulled down for 
a season ; but who would say that it would not be 
rebuilt upon a foundation of human credulity more 
sure, and more to be relied upon, than any he had 
yet discovered.? I had not brought this arch-villain 
to justice; I knew nothing of the confederates he 
had upon the high seas, of the ships which be- 
friended him, it may be of other refuges as safe and 
unnamed as this vast hulk now sinking below the 
horizon and disappearing from my view. And what 
was this but failure, failure as complete as any in 
the history of the police I had derided — a failure 
which no circumstance could atone, no explana- 
tions justify. Such were my reflections — such the 
thoughts that came to me as the great ship faded 
from my vision, downward to the nether world where 
the voices of the lost should welcome her, and the 
spirits of the damned give her greeting. 

Long I stood there, my eyes upon the horizon, 
my vision enchained by the void as though a voice 
must come to me from the unknown and say “ This 
is the truth; this is the hour.” We were alone on 
SS2 


END OF THE DIAMOND SHIP 


the waste of waters now : a brave ship running home- 
ward to the cities and the cottages of England; a 
ship that carried stout hearts and merry men ; upon 
whose decks the prattle of little children might in 
fancy he heard, their childish forms uplifted, their 
young lips kissed. From all this joy I stood apart. 
What had home to give, what were the shores of 
England to me if I might not find there the love 
and confidence of my little Joan.? Not as a child 
but as a woman had she spoken last night when she 
said : “ Tell me the story of my life and I shall 
have the right to listen to you.” There could be 
no rest for me, no thought of man’s love for her, 
until the record proved her not the daughter of 
General Fordibras, but his victim. I had been con- 
scious of this from the beginning, but the inevita- 
bility of it recurred to me now when the great ship 
had disappeared from my ken, and all my hopes 
seemed to sink with her. To win Joan’s love I must 
snatch her secret from a rogue’s keeping, carry it 
triumphantly to her, and so write it that all the 
world might read. God alone knew how such a task 
as this might be accomplished. I wonder not that 
its very magnitude appalled me. 

And so the new day waxed old, and found me 
still alone, my eyes upon the void; my heart heavy 
with the burden I must carry. The great sea had 
spoken and I had heard her voice and bowed to the 
S3S 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


destiny of her judgments. Let the land now an- 
swer me — that land for which mj friends yearned 
as exiles, who have heard a call from home and 
answered it with tears of gladness because their 
faces are toward the light. 


334 


CHAPTER XXXII 


IN LONDON ONCE MORE 

I AM not one of those who touch the posts by 
Temple Bar with that rare delight which betrays 
the true-blue Londoner. Foreign scenes are ever a 
safer tonic to me than any fret and striving of 
our own cities; and gladly as I turn to London 
sometimes, it is rarely that I do not quit her 
shadows with a greater pleasure. Perhaps I am 
conscious of a subtle change creeping upon her, and 
destroying much of her charm. To me she seems 
as the great growing child which has lost its 
strength in the act. Vast beyond all belief, her 
energies are perceptibly weakening. She is no 
longer an example to the provinces; they do not 
imitate her fashions, and are ready to scoff at her 
pretensions. The old London of the gloomy the- 
aters, the narrow dirty streets, the London of Simp- 
son’s and Evans’, and the decent supper rooms, was 
a thousand times more romantic a city in my eyes 
than this County Council Babylon, with its raucous 
prophets and its perpetual cant of moralities. Let 
the blame be on my head which dares to think such 
SS5 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


treason. I am lonely in wide streets, and the gos- 
pel of modernity depresses me. 

Unrepentant, I write these lines, and yet they can 
conjure up for me a vision of London, so desired, 
that all the years will never blot it from my mem- 
ory. I had been in England two months then. A 
littered writing table in my private sitting room at 
a great Strand hotel bore witness to my activities 
— an untasted elixir in a wineglass by my side spoke 
of a woman’s anxieties and of her devotion. Cer- 
tainly my dear sister Harriet had sufficiently im- 
pressed upon these people the necessity of treating 
all carpets and curtains by an antiseptic process, 
and the profound wisdom of warming the interiors 
of those hats which subsequently were to adorn the 
heads of males. Her debates with a German prince 
in command, neither understanding the tongue of 
the other, were a little protracted, and not always 
without heat. She was determined that I should 
not cut my finger-nails with unaired scissors, and 
convinced that the only way of saving me from the 
troubles which beset the path of my indifference lay 
in the frequent administration of advertised tonics, 
and a just sampling of the whole of them. I suf- 
fered her and was happy. Is it not something that 
there should be one woman in all the world who 
lives for us a life so wholly unselfish that no 
thought of her own needs ever enters into it? 

336 


IN LONDON ONCE MORE 

To my dear sister, then, be this well-earned tribute 
paid. Doubly fortunate, I might write down an- 
other name and spare no encomiums. Joan Fordi- 
bras, my little Joan of Dieppe and the sunshine, 
was with us in the hotel, and no less a slave of 
mine than the other. Every day, when I came down 
to breakfast, it was Joan who had been across to 
Covent Garden for the flowers I like best to have 
about me — it was Joan’s clever fingers which delved 
amidst the mass of littered papers and unfailingly 
extracted therefrom the erring document ; Joan who 
told me at night what had happened during the day 
in this dismal world of politics and art; le monde 
ou s^on amuse by calling those who differ from you 
knaves and decrying all merit save that which makes 
its particular appeal to you. Rarely then did I 
find her in that merry mood of girlhood in which 
I caught her — how long it seemed ago — at the fete 
at Kensington. If her face betrayed the sea’s dower 
of heightened color and eyes unspeakably dark, she 
had become less the child and more the woman, and 
she lived as one tortured between two mills of 
doubt — knowing the past and fearing the future, 
but unconscious of the present. Between us there 
stood the impassable barrier of the truce we arrived 
at upon the deck of my yacht. White Wings. I was 
never again to tell her what she was and must be 
to me — never to speak of a man’s love prevailing 

337 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


above all else, more precious to him than all else 
under God’s fair sky; never to speak of it until I 
could carry the secret to her and say : “ This is 
your birthright, such were the days of your child- 
hood.” I had pledged my word, and the bond was 
of honor. Time might redeem it or time might 
bring the ultimate misfortune upon me — I knew not 
nor had the courage to prophesy. 

So London became the city of my desire, and in 
London my work began. I saw Joan every day, 
heard the music of her laughter, and was conscious 
of her presence about me as man is ever aware of 
the spirit of happiness which hovers so rarelj^ about 
a busy life. The littered table in my private room 
bore witness to my activities, and the animation with 
which I had pursued them. Many ambitions have I 
set before me to worship in the years of the old 
time, but never such a task as this ; whose achieve- 
ment must bring a reward beyond price ; whose 
failure, I was aware, would separate me finally and 
forever from the woman I loved. 

To say that I labored at it incessantly, indeed, 
is to do little justice to actuality. The mystery 
went with me wherever I turned. I wrestled with 
it through nights of bitter dreaming; it followed 
me to the streets, to the theaters, to the houses of 
my friends. It prevailed above every other occupa- 
tion ; it would start up even in the blue eyes which 
338 


IN LONDON ONCE MORE 


daily asked the unspoken question ; it would en- 
velop little Joan herself as a veil which hid her 
true self from me; it would stand out black and 
clear upon every page that I wrote — a sentence 
irrevocable, the very apotheosis of the torture of 
doubt. The secret or the years of darkness, said 
the voice. I hid myself from the light and still I 
heard its message. It spoke to me above the city’s 
clamor and the hum of throngs. The secret, or the 
night ! What an alternative was that ! 

I was to go to Joan and to say to her: “You 
are the daughter of this man or that but not of 
General Fordibras.” I was to tell her that none of 
hers had part or lot in the great conspiracy of 
crime whose fringe I had touched, whose arch-priest 
I had named. Here was the task in a nutshell, so 
simple seemingly that any dunce might have en- 
tered upon it with confidence or any child sat down 
to master it. Yet, witness the uncertain steps I 
had followed, and judge then what kind of a task 
it was and what the peculiar nature of my diffi- 
culties. Judge then if I misrepresent the circum- 
stance or claim for myself that which truth has 
not justified. 

We had made a fair passage home from the 
Azores and come straight to London. Losing none 
of the precious hours, I went immediately to Scot- 
land Yard, and from Scotland Yard to a friendly 
339 

'V 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


Minister’s room at Whitehall, and there I told this 
story as it is written in this book, and as time 
has not changed it. If I met with incredulity, I 
blame no one. My cables home had warned the 
police of much that I would tell them, and more 
that remained mere surmise. Murray himself — my 
old friend Murray, whose suppositions had sent me 
upon an errand as strange as any in his calendar — 
Murray assured me that the police of France, of 
Germany, of America, and of Portugal were al- 
ready advised of that which had been done, and 
of the evidence upon which it was being done. But 
even he had begun to lose faith. 

“We have searched the houses you named in 
Paris,” he said, “ and there are half a dozen men 
under lock and key. They have arrested five in 
Berlin, and the world has read the story of the 
coup made in New York. To be frank with you, 
that is all we can do. This Jew of yours appears 
in none of these successes. He is not named any- 
where. There is no trace of him — not a word, or 
a letter, or a trinket. The Governor of the Island 
of Santa Maria declares that the mines there are 
just what they pretend to be; that he has been over 
them with General Fordibras, and that he finds the 
general a very simple, soldierly gentleman. As to 
your Diamond Ship — they will believe in that when 
she comes to port. I have traced the various 
340 


IN LONDON ONCE MORE 


steamers you have named to me, and their papers 
are in all cases correct. To be candid, Dr. Fabos, 
if the Jew himself had come to this office, I should 
have had no evidence to offer against him. There 
is only one of his company threatened, so far, by 
your revelations, and she is Miss Fordibras.” 

We laughed together, and I showed him at once 
that I was not disappointed. 

“ You are face to face with a master,” I ex- 
claimed, “ and you expect to find child’s toys in his 
hands. If Valentine Imroth is to be hanged by 
any thieves’ den in Germany or in Paris — to say 
nothing of London — then is he a hundred miles 
from being the man I met at Santa Maria, or that 
brother Jew who commands the Diamond Ship. Do 
not believe it, Murray. The success of this organ- 
ization is a success of delegation. Nine out of ten 
men in Imroth’s employ have never heard his name, 
never seen him, or become aware of his existence. 
The greater rogues, who form his cabinet, are as 
little likely to be taken in any Cafe des Assassins 
as the Jew himself is likely to make a speech at 
Westminster. We have touched the fringe of a 
splendid fabric, but threads of it only are in our 
hands. To-day, at the Admiralty, Sir James Free- 
man tells me that a second cruiser will be dis- 
patched to the South Atlantic next week. If they 
discover the derelict, I shall be astounded. Ask 
341 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


me for a reason and I can give you none. It is 
mere premonition. Sitting here in London, I can 
depict that sagging hulk as clearly as if I watched 
her from the deck of my own yacht. She is drift- 
ing there, peopled by devils, a ship of blood and 
death — drifting God knows where, without hope or 
idea or haven. She may so drift to the Day of 
Judgment, but man will never discover her. That 
is my belief. I have no reason for it — I admit 
freely that it is ridiculous.” 

Murray did not quarrel with my point of view, 
but assuredly he could not help me. No trace of 
Imroth had been discovered; Fordibras had not been 
arrested, nor had any news of him come from Santa 
Maria. The house there, I understood, was shut 
up, and the so-called miners had left many weeks 
ago in a steamer for Europe. The most diligent 
search had revealed none of those caverns of treas- 
sure which I believed (and still believe) to exist. 
There were implements for drilling and blasting, 
forges, cranes and cartridges, but of secret habita- 
tion, none. The Valley House was declared to be 
an American’s whim, the mountain passage one of 
old existence, and perfectly well known to every in- 
habitant. Such simplicity I judged to have been 
bought at a handsome price. Gold alone could have 
set these people’s tongues wagging so pleasantly. 

“ They are bought to a man, Murray,” I said ; 
34^2 


IN LONDON ONCE MORE 


“ and unless we care to pay a higher price, we may 
trouble them no more. In my view they are not 
the only recipients of this man’s oily bounty. I 
would venture to say that he has friends enough 
in some of the South American republics to save 
an army from the gallows. We will take it at that 
and leave it there. If the Park Lane people do not 
care to carry it further, I have no interest. I 
cannot arrest this man, you say, because there is 
no evidence against him. That must be told him 
when we meet — it shall be part of the price I pay 
for his secret. Such a secret I am determined to 
force from him if I lose my life in the venture. 
Nothing else concerns me now, Murray. Let a 
thousand criminals go down to the sea in ships, 
and I am unmoved. His secret — my task begins 
and ends with that.” 

He did not understand me wholly, nor would I 
unbosom myself to him. The partial failure of 
my voyage could not but result in such incredulity 
as I met everywhere at home. Nor might I blame 
a shrewd officer for saying frankly that there was 
at present no evidence that could be read in court 
against Valentine Imroth. His treasure had been 
successfully hidden from every human eye. A 
friendly Government sheltered him; his dupes seemed 
unable to betray him. The spell that he cast had 
been powerful to protect him even in his absence. 
343 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


I saw more plainly than ever that the final scene 
must be between the arch-rogue and myself — even at 
the peril of my life. 

And how should this be, you ask.^^ How might I 
draw from the shadows a man fearing the light; one 
for whom the police of five nations were supposed 
to be seeking — a man who would as soon come to 
England, you might say, as venture into the jaws 
of hell? Let the circumstance answer me. I had 
a letter from the Jew himself, three days after 
Murray assured me that all the talent of Europe 
could not discover him. Twenty-four hours later 
one of the fastest steam launches on the river 
Thames carried me from London Bridge to a house 
which should give all, or deny me all, before an- 
other dawn had broken. These were the truths, 
and they need no ornament of mine. I was going 
to the Jew’s house, and Okyada, my little Jap, alone 
went with me. Let the circumstance speak, I say, 
for it is worth a thousand guesses. The greatest 
criminal alive, as I believed this man to be, had 
asked me to go to him, and I had answered “ Yes.” 
So shall the record stand — even, as it would seem, 
this surpassing folly — for a woman’s sake, as so 
much folly and wisdom have been since man’s world 
began. 


344 


CHAPTER XXXIII 


THE MASTER CARD 

The Jew had written to me, I say, and I had 
answered his letter. In a few brief sentences, worthy 
of the man and his story, he put me upon my 
honor and recited the compact between us. 

“ To Dr. Fabos, of London, from the Master of 
the Ship. 

At Canvey Island, to which you will come, alone 
or with your servant at the most {^such attendants 
as your launch brings being careful not to land), 
I will await you at sundown on the afternoon of 
the fifth day of May. Fear nothing as I am un- 
afraid. The word is no less sacred to me than to 
you. I pass it and bid you come.'' 

Whence, then, had this strange letter been de- 
livered, and how had I falsified the fine phrases of 
the police and communicated with the Jew.^^ The 
truth shall be told with all the brevity I can com- 
mand. 

There is published thrice every month in Paris a 
pretendedly comic paper, called the Journal des 
345 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 

Polissons. Ostensibly a journal pour rire, a poor 
man’s Punch and jester, it is, as I have long known, 
a sure means by which one thief may communicate 
with another, or any assassin make known his hiding 
place to his friends. This knowledge I employed 
directly it became plain to me that Valentine Imroth 
had escaped the meshes of the law’s clumsy net, and 
defied a police which vainly protested that there was 
no evidence against him. I advertised in the paper 
in the common cryptogram of the Polish societies. 
Making no effort to be clever, I intimated to the 
Master of the Ship that I could be of the greatest 
service to him if he, in turn, were willing to be 
of some little service to me. This letter, so amaz- 
ing — for so many are the eyes which watch the Jew’s 
career — was answered before a week had run. 
In a sentence I learned that the so-called Master 
was in hiding on Canvey Island — that desolate 
marsh beyond Tilbury, familiar to all who go down 
to the Nore in ships. There he would see me and 
hear my news. There I must challenge him and be 
answered — ah, what would I have not given to know 
in what manner he would answer me ! 

It is not to be supposed that I claim any merit 
of this voyage or was unaware of its peculiar dan- 
gers. The Jew knew perfectly well with whom he 
had to deal, and I might reasonably argue that he 
would never be madman enough to attempt any- 
346 


THE MASTER CARD 


thing against me at a moment when I could render 
him a service of such magnitude as that I proposed. 
To be frank, I found the whole business not less 
humiliating than that former failure in mid-ocean 
which will remain the supreme misfortune of my 
career. Here was I, who had set out to hunt this 
man down, about to say to him : “Go your way ; 
I have done with you. The police say there is no 
evidence against you. It is their affair, and I will 
take no further part in it.” He, on his part, must 
guess that I came to him in some such mood. 
Canvey Island, I remembered, could be easily gained 
from the open sea, and just as easily from the 
shore of Essex. There would be a hundred eyes 
watching the coming of my launch, spies afloat 
and spies ashore, a launch of his own, perhaps, and 
certainly every expedient his subtle mind could con- 
trive against any treachery that might be contem- 
plated against him. He would trust me with a 
sword naked to his hand as it were. On my side, 
I might go safely while we agreed — ^but let us 
quarrel, and then God help me, I said. 

Thus, in a word, the situation lay. I staked my 
life, not upon the honor of Valentine Imroth, but 
upon a human interest I believed powerful enough 
to protect me. And this step I took that I might 
return to Joan and say : “ Here is the truth ; here 
is the story which you and I will guard while we 
23 347 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


live.” The danger could be nothing to me in the 
face of that which success must mean. I was as 
a miner lifting his pick for the last time. Ah, my 
God! what hopes and fears I carried to that lonely 
island, what a burden of doubt and dread! 

I shall say nothing of my voyage down the 
Thames, nor of those scenes so often described, and 
with such feeling, by some of our latter-day novel- 
ists. To me the lower river is ever an echo of the 
voice of the agitated Pepys, or the more stately 
tones of the pious Evelyn. A changed river, since 
the great ships deserted the wharves by London 
Bridge, none the less, she is, in a sense, still the 
great highway to the kingdoms of the world. Here 
is that water temple which the giant masts mark 
out; here all tongues are eloquent of the worship 
of the sea ; here men of all nations commingle in that 
rare confraternity which has earned our wealth and 
established our greatness while the centuries have 
run. A river she is of curdling pools and racing 
tides, of towering stages and gabled houses ; a river 
of mystery and of darkness, beloved of the city, 
which has deserted her, inseparable from the story 
of its people. To her true disciples, then, be the 
keeping of the record. My launch carried me too 
speedily by creek and pool that I should claim to be 
of the elect. 

Now we had left St. Katherine’s wharf late in 

348 


THE MASTER CARD 

the afternoon, and it was almost dark when the 
great orb of the Chapman Light came to our view. 
A rough diagram on the back of the Jew’s letter 
had indicated to me where I must land upon the 
island, and at what point his servants would wait 
for me. Had I been in doubt, a green lantern 
swinging by the low wall of a decrepit farmhouse 
— the first you see when the island comes to your 
view — would have called my attention to the place 
and invited me to go ashore there. I had by con- 
sent passed my word to take none but Okyada to 
the meeting, and faithful to the promise he alone 
followed me to the landing stage and prepared 
to go up to the house with me. The launch itself 
had been lent to me by Messrs. Yarrow, and was 
commanded by one of their engineers. I did not 
dare to ask even Captain Larry to be with me upon 
such a night — and as for my friend, the loquacious 
Timothy, it would have been madness to bring him. 
The Jew had told me in the plainest terms that 
my very life depended upon a faithful interpreta- 
tion of the terms of the compact, and I knew my 
man too well to doubt his meaning. This lonely 
shore, I said again, would be watched by a hun- 
dred eyes. And what eyes! Truly a man might 
peer into those gloomy shadows and believe this to 
be the haven of ultimate Melancholy, the home of 
those unresting spirits the great river had carried 

349 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


out from the stress and the storms of the city’s 
life to this place of the skull, and of the spirit’s 
Calvary. A chill hand of Nature’s death had 
touched it. Its very breath was as a pest. 

An old negro stood on the landing stage as the 
launch came alongside, and he it was who carried 
the lantern. No one else appeared to be about, 
though I heard a whistle blown sharply, and an- 
swered by another over toward the Essex shore. 
The negro himself hid his face as much as possible 
from me, nor did he utter a single word or betray 
the slightest emotion at my coming. I noticed, 
however, that he waited for the launch to cast a 
little way off into the river before he moved from 
the stage, and when this was done and the whistle 
had been sounded a second time, he led the way 
up a narrow grassy path to the farmhouse, and 
quietly left me at its door. Night had quite come 
down by this time, and a dank white mist began to 
rise above the marshes. The farmhouse itself ap- 
peared to be a structure built by some bonest 
Dutchman who had helped to save Canvey Island 
from the sea when Essex was still washed by the 
waters of the estuary. A single light burned in 
one of its windows, but elsewhere it was dark as the 
river which flowed so blackly before its gates. 

I knocked three times upon an ancient door, and 
was answered immediately by a trim maidservant. 
S50 


THE MASTER CARD 


Yes, she said, Mr. Imroth was at home and expect- 
ing me. And so she ushered me into the presence 
of that master criminal for whom the police had 
searched the cities of the world. 

Seated in a low armchair in a little room at 
the front of the house — a poor, shabby apartment, 
furnished with no better taste than a Margate 
lodging house, I perceived that Valentine Imroth 
wore a green shade low over his eyes, but not so 
low as to impair his vision ; while the chair he had 
placed for me and the lamp set upon the table 
would permit him to follow every passing thought 
of mine with the eyes of a human artist upon whom 
nothing is lost. Careless in his attitude, he smoked 
an immense cigar with evident satisfaction, and had 
by his side a black bottle, which, as I knew by its 
shape, should contain Holland gin. In many ways 
a changed man from the Jew I had met upon the 
heights at Santa Maria, the ferocious aspect of him 
was but little abated; and as though to emphasize 
it, he had laid a great stick by the side of his 
chair while one of the ugliest boar hounds I have 
ever seen blinked at his feet, and lifted a savage 
head silently at my coming. These things I ob- 
served instantly, and drew my own conclusions from 
them. “ He is not armed,” I said, “ but somewhere 
near by his friends are concealed — the dog would 
hold me if he gave the word, and half a score 
351 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


of ruffians would do the rest.” A place of peril 
surely — and yet I had known that it must be so 
when I set out to meet him. 

I put my hat upon the floor and drew the chair 
a little back from the table to which it had been 
drawn up. 

“ I am here,” I said shortly, “ in answer to your 
letter. The conditions upon which we meet are 
faithfully observed between us. My servant is wait- 
ing for me at your door, and my launch is out in 
the river. Let us get to business at once. That, 
I hope, is your wish.” 

He thrust the shade back upon his forehead, and 
showed me a pair of red-limned eyes, watery and 
blinking as the dog’s at his feet. The long, thin 
hand which held the cigar seemed to be silver-backed 
like a brush, with nails as black as ebony. An im- 
mense diamond glittered upon his little finger. Like 
all his fellows, he had not conquered the love of 
personal display even at his age, which could not 
have been less than eighty years. 

“ It is my hope,” he repeated, not without dig- 
nity — which, however, he lost instantly in the man- 
ner of a broker of Houndsditch selling shabby furni- 
ture — “ to see the great Dr. Fabos of London, to 
have him in my house; that is an honor for an 
humble old man. What have I done to deserve it — 
how has this pleasure come into a poor old life.'*” 
352 


THE MASTER CARD 


He tittered like some old witch making a peat 
fire by a roadside. But it was the laughter of a 
vanity not to be hushed, and I passed it by with 
a gesture. 

“ The pleasure came into your house at your own 
invitation,’’ I rejoined. It will go again very 
shortly by the same road. Please give me your 
attention. I am here neither for mutual expres- 
sion of self -admiration nor the desire of your 
amiable company. In a word, I have come to ask 
you for the story of Joan Fordibras.” 

He nodded his head, still tittering, and leaned 
back in his chair to survey me with a closer cir- 
cumspection. 

“ The great Dr. Fabos of London,” he repeated, 
‘‘ here in the house of the poor old Jew ! How I 
am complimented; how I am honored! The great 
English doctor who has followed a poor old man all 
round the world, and has come here to beg a favor 
of him at last! Repeat your question, doctor — 
ask me many times. The words are music to me, I 
drink them in like wine — the words of my dear 
friend the doctor; how shall I ever forget them.?” 

It was horrible to hear him cackle; more hor- 
rible still to remember that a single word of his 
uttered aloud to the men who watched us (for I 
believe that we were watched) would have cost me 
my life upon the instant. How to continue I hardly 
S5S 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


knew. Long minutes passed and found him still 
worming and cackling in the chair as an old hag 
above a reddening fire. I had nothing further to 
say — it was for him to proceed. 

“ Yes, yes, my dear,” he continued presently, fall- 
ing boldly into the language of his race. “ Yes, 
yes; you are the great Dr. Fabos of London, and 
I am the poor old Jew. And you would know the 
story of the little Joan Fordibras! How small the 
world is that we should meet here in this shabby 
house — the poor old Jew and the rich doctor. And 
so you come to me after all for help! It is the 
Jew who must put you to the bridal bed; the Jew 
who shall save the little girl for her lover. Ah, 
my dear, what a thing is love, and what fools are 
men! The great rich doctor to leave his home, his 
friends, his country, to spend the half of his for- 
tune upon a ship — all for love, and that he might 
see the poor old Jew again. I have never heard 
a better thing — God of my fathers, it is something 
to have lived for this!” 

He repeated this many times as though the very 
words were meat and drink to him. I began to 
perceive that he was the victim of an inordinate 
vanity, and that my own failure was dearer to him 
than a gift of millions would have been. 

“ Do I want money ? ” he asked presently, turn- 
ing upon me almost savagely. “ Heaven hear me, 
354 


THE MASTER CARD 

it is as dirt beneath my feet. Do I want fine houses, 
halls of marble, and gowns of silk.?^ Look at the 
room in which I live. Consider my circumstances, 
my fortune, my riches, the clothes upon my back, 
the servants who wait upon me! Money, no — but 
to see the great men humbled — to strike at their 
fortunes, at their hearts; ah, that is something the 
poor old Jew would die for! Here to-night his 
reward begins. The great Dr. Fabos comes to me 
upon his knees to beg me the gift of a woman’s 
heart. How many have so come since I was this 
doctor’s age — a young man, spurned by his people, 
a fool, living honestly, worshiper in temples made 
by man.? And to all I have said, as I say to him 
— no, a thousand times, no! Get you gone from 
me as they have gone. Admit that the Jew is your 
master after all. Live to remember him — bear the 
brand upon your heart, the curse which he has borne 
at your people’s will, at the bidding of their faith. 
So I answer you. Dr. Fabos. Such are my words 
to you — the last time we shall ever meet, who 
knows, perhaps, the last day you may have to 
live.” 

He leaned forward, and from his eyes there 
seemed to shine a light of all the fires of evil that 
have ever burned in human breast. No man, I be- 
lieve, has listened to such a threat as he uttered 
against me this night. The very tones of it could 
355 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


freeze the blood at the heart; the gestures were 
those of one who lusted for human blood with all the 
voracity of an animal. I will not deny that I 
shivered while I heard him. Remember the remote 
farmhouse, the lonely marsh, the silence of the night, 
the stake at issue between us. Who shall wonder 
if my words were slow to come.? 

“ You threaten me,” I said with some composure, 
“ and yet, as a student of your race, I should have 
thought that the hour for threats had not come. I 
am here to ask you to do me a service, but at 
the same time to suggest an equivalent that might 
not be unacceptable to you. Let us consider 
the matter in a purely business light, and see if 
we cannot arrive at an understanding. You must 
be perfectly aware that I do not come empty- 
handed ” 

He interrupted me with a savage cry, so star- 
tling that it amazed me. 

“Fool!” he cried; “I am the master of the 
fortunes of kings. What can you bring that is of 
any value to me ? ” 

I answered him immediately : 

“ The liberty of your wife, Lisette, who was ar- 
rested in Vienna this morning ! ” 

It was as though I had struck a blow at his heart. 
The cry that escaped his lips might have come from 
the very depths of hell ; I have never seen a human 
356 


THE MASTER CARD 

face so distorted by the conflicting passions of love 
and hate and anger. Gasping, a horrid sound in 
his throat, he staggered to his feet and felt nerv- 
ously for the cudgel at his side — the great hound 
leaped up and stiffened every limb. 

“ Keep that dog back, or, by God ! I will kill 
you where you stand,” I cried, and every word I 
spoke thrilling me as a desire gratified, I turned 
his mockery upon him. “ Here is the great Dr. 
Fabos of London come into his own at last, you see. 
Fool, in your turn, did you think that you dealt 
with a child.? The woman is in jail, I say. My 
money has put her there — I alone can set her free 
— I alone, Valentine Imroth. Listen to that and 
beg her freedom on your knees — you devil amongst 
men ; kneel to me or she shall pay the uttermost 
farthing. Now will you hear me, or shall I go.? 
Your wife, Lisette, the little French brunette from 
Marseilles — did I not tell you at Santa Maria that 
I had the honor of her acquaintance? Fool to for- 
get it — fool! for by her you shall pay.” 

The words came from my lips in a torrent. I 
had played the master card, and was as safe in this 
house from that moment as though a hundred of 
my friends were there to guard me. The Jew lay 
stricken at my feet. Ghastly pale, his hands palsied, 
his limbs quivering as with an ague, he sank slowly 
back into his chair, his eyes searching my own in 

357 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 

terror, his whole manner that of one who had not 
many moments to live. 

“ My wife, Lisette — yes, yes — it would be by her. 
I am an old man, and you will have pity — speak 
and tell me you will have pity — you are Dr. Fabos 
of London. What harm has the poor old Jew done 
you.f* Oh, not her, for the love of God — I will tell 
you what you wish, give me time — I am an old man, 
and the light fades from my eyes — give me time and 
I will tell. Lisette — yes, yes — I am going to her 
at Buda, and she is waiting for me. Devil, you 
would not keep me from Lisette ” 

I poured some spirit into a glass and put it to 
his lips. 

“ Listen,” I said. “ Your wife is arrested, but I 
can set her free. Write truly the story of Miss 
Fordibras, and a cable from me this night shall 
obtain her liberty. I will listen to no other terms. 
Joan Fordibras’s story — that is the price you must 
pay — here and now, for I will give you no second 
chance ” 

It would be vain to speak of the scene that fol- 
lowed, the muttering, the piteous entreaty, the hys- 
terical outbursts. I had never made so astounding 
a discovery as that which told me, a week before 
I left England in my yacht, that this old man had 
married a young wife in Paris, and that — such are 
the amazing contrasts of, life — he loved her with 
358 


THE MASTER CARD 


a devotion as passionate as it was lasting. The 
knowledge had saved me once already at Santa 
Maria; to-night it should save my little Joan, and 
take from her forever the burden of the doubt. 
Not for an instant did my chances stand in jeop- 
ardy. Every word that I spoke to this abject figure 
brought me one step nearer to my goal. They were 
as words of fire burning deep into a dotard’s heart. 

“ Lisette,” I continued, seeing him still silent. 
“ Lisette is charged with the possession of certain 
jewels once the property of Lady Mordant. I am 
the witness who has identified those jewels. Your 
dupe, Harry Avenhill, who came up to rob my house 
in Suffolk, is the man who will charge this woman 
with the crime and establish the case against her. 
Whether we go to Vienna or persuade Lady Mor- 
dant to withdraw the charge, it is for you to say. 
I will give you just ten minutes by that clock upon 
your chimney. Use them well, I implore you. 
Think what you are doing before it is too late to 
think at all — the liberty this woman craves or the 
charge and punishment. Which is it to be, old 
man.? Speak quickly, for my time is precious.” 

For a little while he sat, his hands drumming the 
table, his eyes half closed. I knew that he was 
asking himself what would be the gain or the loss 
should he beckon some one from the shadows to enter 
the house and kill me. One witness would thus be 

359 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


removed from his path — but who would answer for 
the other? And was it possible that his old enemy, 
who had outwitted him so often, would be outwitted 
to-night? This seemed to me his argument. I 
watched him rise suddenly from his chair, peer out 
to the darkness, and as suddenly sit again. Whether 
his courage had failed him or this were the chosen 
moment for the attack, I shall never be able to say 
with certainty. For me it was an instant of acute 
suspense, of nervous listening for footsteps, of 
quick resolution and prompt decision. Let there be 
an echo of a step, but one sound without, I said, 
and I would shoot the man where he sat. Thus 
was I determined. In this dread perplexity did the 
instant pass. 

“ I cannot write,” he gasped at last. “ Put your 
questions to me, and I will answer them.” 

‘‘ And sign the document I have brought with me. 
So be it — the questions are here, in order. Let your 
answers be as brief.” 

I sat at the head of the table and spread the 
document before me. The lamp shed a warm aureole 
of light upon the paper, but left the outer room in 
darkness. My words were few, but deliberate; his 
answers often but a mutter of sounds. 

“Joan Fordibras, whose daughter is she?” 

“ The daughter of David Kennard of Illinois.” 

“ Her mother? ” 


360 


THE MASTER CARD 


“ I am not acquainted with her name — a French 
Canadian. The records in Illinois will tell you.” 

‘‘ How came she to be this man Fordibras’s 
ward? ” 

“ His cowardice — his conscience as men call it. 
Kennard was charged with the great safe robberies 
of the year 1885. He was innocent. They were my 
planning — my agents executed them. But Kennard 
— ah, he betrayed me, he would have stood in my 
path, and I removed him.” 

“ Then he was convicted? ” 

“ He was convicted and sentenced to twenty years’ 
imprisonment. Fordibras, under the name of Chan- 
garnier — his real name — he is the cousin of that 
Changarnier who did France much mischief in the 
year 1870 — Fordibras was then the governor of the 
Sing Sing prison on the Hudson River. He was 
in my pay, but David Kennard had been his friend, 
and he took the daughter and brought her up as 
his own child. I did not forbid it — why should I? 
A woman, if she is pretty, is useful to my purposes. 
I wished to humble this man of iron and I have 
done so. Pshaw, what a figure he cuts to-day ! 
Skulking in Tunis like a paltry cutpurse — afraid 
of me, afraid — but proud, my friend — proud, proud, 
as one of your great nobles. That is Hubert Fordi- 
bras. Speak a word to the police and you may 
arrest him. Hush — I will send you evidence. He 
361 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


is proud, and there is heart in him. Tear it out, 
for he is a traitor. He has shut his eyes and held 
out his hands, and I have put the money into them. 
Tear the heart out of him, for he will kill the 
woman you love.” 

I ignored the savage treachery of this, its bru- 
tality and plain-spoken hatred. The general’s pride 
must have been a bitter burden to this creeping 
scoundrel with his insufferable vanities and his in- 
tense desire to abase all men before him. The quar- 
rel was nothing to me — I could well wish that 
Hubert Fordibras might never cross my path again. 

“ Traitor or not — it is your concern,” I said. 
“ There is another question here. When Joan Fordi- 
bras wore my stolen pearls in London, was the 
general aware that they were stolen ? ” 

A smile, revoltingly sardonic, crossed his ashen 
face. 

“Would he have the brains.? She wore them at 
my dictation. I had long watched you — you did 
not know it, but knowledge was coming to you. I 
said that you must be removed from my path. God 
of heaven! Why were you not struck dead before 
Harry Ross lay dead on Palling beach ? ” 

“ The young seaman who was found with the Red 
Diamond of Ford Valley in his possession ! The 
brother of Colin Ross who took your place upon 
the ElUda? I begin to understand — he was carry- 
362 


THE MASTER CARD 


ing those jewels to London, and an accident over- 
took him? That was a grave misfortune for me.” 

He clenched his hands and looked me full in the 
face. 

“ Had he lived I would have torn him limb from 
limb. He stole the jewels from my dispatch boat 
and was drowned escaping to shore. My friend, 
the good God was merciful to him that he let him 
die.” 

I could not but smile at piety so amazing. In 
truth a new excitement had seized upon me and 
my desire to escape the house had now become a 
fever of impatience. What if an accident befell 
me, or an agent of evil stood suddenly between Joan 
and my tidings! How if the cup were dashed from 
my lips at the last moment ! Good God ! What an 
agony, even in imagination I 

“ Mr. Imroth,” I said, rising upon the impulse. 
“ I will cable at once to Vienna, saying that I have 
no evidence to offer, and the girl Lisette will be 
discharged. Go where you will, but leave England. 
To-night I spare you. But should you cross my 
path again, I will hang you as surely as there is 
an almighty God to judge your deeds and punish 
you for them. That is my last word to you. I 
pray with all my soul that I shall never see your 
face again.” 

He did not move, uttered no sound, sat like a 

24 S6S 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 

figure of stone in his chair. And so I left him and 
went out into the night. 

For I was going to Joan, to bear to her the 
supreme tidings of my message, to lay this gift of 
knowledge at her feet, and in those eyes so dear to 
read the truths which, beyond all else on earth, were 
my desire. 


364 


CHAPTER XXXIV 


THE EPILOGUE OF TIMOTHY MCSHANUS, JOURNALIST 

My friend Mulock, in his “ Magnus and Morna,” 
has written that ye should drink at a wedding with 
discerning, lest ye lose the way upon a straight road 
afterwards. ’Tis no man I am to quarrel with a 
precept so honest or a reflection upon matrimony 
so prudent. We shall drink at the Goldsmith Club 
this night to the lost liberty of my dear comrade 
Ean Fabos, and would that it could be with that 
same measure the poet speaks of. If I doubt me 
of the possibility, ’tis to remember with Horace, that 
wine is mighty to inspire new hopes, and able to 
drown the bitterness of cares. Shall we reflect upon 
this loss to our club, and to society with parched 
throats, and a hand upon the soda-water syphon? 
Bacchus and the corybantes forbid ! We will drown 
it in the best — at my dear friend’s request, and, as 
he would wish it — ah, noble heart! — at his expense. 

He was married at the parish church in Hamp- 
stead, you should know, and Timothy McShanus it 
was who gave the bride away. The little witch of a 
shepherdess that has carried honest men twice round 
365 


THE DIAMOND SHIP 


the world and back again, set other women weep- 
ing, and come at last to that sure port which 
Destiny had built for her — was she changed from 
the black-eyed minx I saw at Kensington, less mis- 
chievous, less sprightly, more of a woman, not so 
much the pretty child of the school books? No, I 
say, a thousand times, no ! There is golden light 
about her path, and all the spirits of laughter shine 
in her eyes. Could I search all the cities for a 
wife for my friend, this is the dear heart I would 
choose for him; this the companion I would name 
for his blessing. She has won a brave man’s love, 
and is happy therein. God be good to her, says 
old Timothy — and he is one that has read the heart 
of women. 

So am I cast out again to the familiar haunts, 
a wanderer once more, a snapper up of unconsid- 
ered trifles. My dear friend, it is true, remember- 
ing that I have eaten the food of the law, drunk its 
port and paid its fees, would make of me a govern- 
ment man and an official. But my heart fails me. 
I am grown old in the sin of indolence. If I have 
a merit, it is that I know the blessings of doing 
nothing and the salary that should be expected by 
him who does it. Let me continue in paths so 
straight, in ways so ancient. My friendship for 
Ean Fabos is too precious that men should call me 
a gatherer of moss and a roller of stones. 

366 


EPILOGUE OF McSHANUS 


And is this to say that henceforth I have no 
career ; that like the little Jap, of whom my friend 
has almost made a son, henceforth my place is at 
the gate without? Must I be a “past” to Ean 
Fabos, dear to his memory, one of his household, 
but voiceless as the night, unhonored, unremembered, 
unseeing? The gods forbid, I say. The book that 
I am writing upon our adventures in the South 
Seas — shortly to be published in one volume at 
six shillings — that book shall be my monument more 
lasting than brass. You will find many things in 
it, reader, much for the improvement of your mind, 
and the elevation of your intellect — but above all 
you shall find a love and devotion to Dr. Fabos 
which is the truest instinct of my eventful life. 

And he is married and is gone to the West, and 
I am alone and in sorrow, and the doors of the Club 
are open to me. Many men and cities have I seen, 
but London — ah! blessed art thou, London, for the 
desolate shall make their home with thee, and the 
children that are orphans shall nestle at thy bosom. 
In the metropolis of the British Empire, then, let 
this sorrow of mine be buried. 

For thither shall my friend Ean return when the 
days of summer have waned, and his little wife be- 
gins to speak of home and of those who love him and 
have not forgotten. 


367 


( 1 ) 


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note. She has just done so in issuing ‘The Great Re- 
fusal/ a novel of self-sacrifice. No more uplifting book 
of its kind has appeared since Besant's ‘All Sorts and 
Conditions of Men ’ emphasized the lesson that we do not 
live only for ourselves and that we can fulfill a high ideal 
in bettering the condition of our fellow-men .” — Portland 
Oregonian. 


D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. 


A GOOD AUTOMOBILE STORY. 


Baby Bullet. 

By Lloyd Osbourne, Author of “ The Motor 
maniacs.” Illustrated. i2mo. Ornamental Cloth 
$1.50. 

This is the jolliest, most delightfully humorous love 
story that has been written in the last ten years. Bab> 
Bullet is an “orphan automobile.” It is all through the 
adoption of Baby Bullet by her travelling companion thal 
a dear, sweet, human modern girl meets a very nice youn^ 
man, and a double romance is begun and finished on ar 
automobiling tour through England. 

“ The story is smoothly written, full of action and healthful fun.’ 

— Philadelphia Public Ledger 

“ * Baby Bullet ’ is without doubt the best written and most enter 
taining automobile story yet published. The most enjoyable feature o 
this book is its genuine, unforced humor, which finds expression no 
only in ludicrous situations, but in bright and spirited dialogue, keei 
observation and natural characterization.” — St. Paul Dispatch. 

“ Certain stories there are that a man fervently wishes he migh 
claim as his own. Of these, ‘ Baby Bullet ’ is one.” — Baltimore Sun. 

“ It is broad comedy, full of adventurous fun, clever and effective 
The tale is fascinating from the start. The adventures of Baby Bulle 
are distinctly funny.” — New York Sun. 

“ The characters are lightly drawn, but with great humor. It is i 
story that refreshes a tired brain and provokes a light heart.” 

— Chicago Tribune 

“ It is a most satisfying and humorous narrative.” 

— Indianapolis News 

“ One of the funniest scenes in recent fiction is the escape of th 
automobile party from the peroxide blonde who has answered thei 
advertisement for a chaperon.” — San Francisco Chronicle. 


D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK 


WORKS OF ROBERT W* CHAMBERS. 


lOLE. 

Color inlay on the cover and many full-page illus- 
trations, borders, thumbnail sketches, etc., by J. C. 
Leyendecker, Arthur Becher, and Karl Anderson. 

$1.25. 

The story of eight pretty girls and their fat poetical 
father, an apostle of art “ dead stuck on Nature and sim- 
plicity.’' 

“ ‘ lole ’ is unquestionably a classic.” — San Francisco Bulletin. 

Mr. Chambers is a benefactor to the human race.” 

— Seattle Post-Intelligencer . 

“Quite the most amusing and delectable bit of nonsense that has 
come to light for a long time.” — Life. 

“ One of the most alluring books of the season.” 

— Louisville Courier -Journal. 

“ The joyous abounding charm of ‘ lole ’ is indescribable. It is for 
you to read. ‘ lole ' is guaranteed to drive away the blues.” 

— New York Press. 

“ Mr. Chambers has never shown himself more brilliant and more 
imaginative than in this little satirical idyllic comedy.” 

— Kansas City Star. 

“ A fresh proof of Mr. Chambers’ amazing versatility.” 

— Everybody' s Magazine. 

“ As delicious a satire as one could want to read.” 

— Pittsburg Chronicle. 

“ It is an achievement to write a genuinely funny book and another 
to write a truly instructive book ; but it is the greatest of achievements 
to write a book that is both. This Mr. Chambers has done in ‘ lole.’ ” 

— Washington Star. 

“ Amid the outpour of the insipid ‘ lole ’ comes as June sunshine. 
The author of ‘ Cardigan ’ shows a fine touch and rarer pigments as the 
number of his canvases grows. ‘ lole ’ is a literary achievement which 
must always stand in the foremost of its Chicago Evening Post. 


D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. 


A GREAT ROMANTIC NOVEL. 


The Reckoning. 

By Robert W. Chambers. Illustrated by 
Henry Hutt. $1.50. 

“A thrilling and engrossing tale.” — New York Sun. 

“ When we say that the new work is as good as ‘ Cardigan ’ it 
is hardly necessary to say more.” — The Dial. 

“ Robert Chambers’ books recommend themselves. ‘ The 
Reckoning’ is one of his best and will delight lovers of good 
novels.” — Boston Herald. 

“ It is an exceedingly fine specimen of its class, worthy of its 
predecessors and a joy to all who like plenty of swing and spirit.” 

— London Bookman, 

“ Robert W. Chambers’ stories of the revolutionary period in 
particular show a care in historic detail that put them in a different 
class from the rank and file of colonial novels.” — Book News. 

“ A stirring tale well told and absorbing. It is not a book to 
forget easily and it will for many throw new light on a phase of 
revolutionary history replete with interest and appeal.” 

— Chicago Record- Her aid. 

“ Chambers' bullets whistle almost audibly in the pages ; when 
a twig snaps, as twigs do perforce in these chronicles, you can 
almost feel the presence of the savage buck who snaps it. Then 
there are situations of force and effect everywhere through the 
pages, an intensity of action, a certain naturalness of dialogue and 
‘ human nature ’ in the incidents. But over all is the glamor of the 
Chambers fancy, the gauzy woof of an artist’s imagination which 
glories in tints, in poesies, in the little whims of the brush and 
pencil, so that you have just a pleasant reminder of unreality and 
a glimpse of the author himself here and there to vary the interest.” 

— St. Louis Republic. 


D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. 


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